Offering individual, couples, family and group therapy in-office and online.
Approved to practice telehealth under PSYPACT and with NY State Residents.
Approved to practice telehealth under PSYPACT and with NY State Residents.
“The family is both the cradle of security and the cradle of discontent.”
Do you feel like you are amidst chaos, with your family falling part?
Or are you struggling in your connection with a parent and/or child?
Is one or more member of your family in transition and struggling to cope?
They are an integral part of our development as humans. It is from and to whom we share our most fragile moments and our deepest connections. They are also, most often, our longest running relationships.
Some believe that there is no such thing as the individual—that we are always part of a system, shaped by the fluid interactions of family, community, and generations before us.
Systems theory says we each develop a role to help the whole function. When those roles are not healthy or the system goes into overdrive, it is time for help.
Family therapy is typically indicated when there is conflict within the family or when one member has become identified with an issue, such as explosive outbursts, an eating disorder, addiction, depression, anxiety, and more. Further, when there are issues or ‘acting out’ in a child, this often signals a deeper misalignment within the family system.
Transitions are another time in the life of a family that might benefit from help. These ‘moments’ might include significant life changes such as divorce, remarriage, or blending of families of various kinds, a teen leaving home relocation, physical and/or mental illness, and business and/or school failures. There is a shift to the system, and nuances and patterns often emerge that hinder growth for both the individual and the family.
Presenting issues might include, but are not limited to:
Step-parenting and Family Re-organization: Blended Families
Family therapy is not just for families with small children or teens, but for individuals with adult children not living at home. My work is limited to families with older teens and adult children.
Family therapy is enormously effective at getting at the root cause, not the symptom, of the client’s struggle. The aim is to harness resources within each of the family members, who, particularly the parents, discover they already hold the inner capacity to repair ruptures within the family.
Family therapy, like other forms of treatment, requires an assessment process. This process requires meetings with the various dyads and triads or ‘sub-groups’ that occur within the family group. These might include, but are not limited to, the parents, siblings, and, in some cases, extended family and significant others. During this assessment process, a first step is to determine if family therapy is essential or if individual therapy might be initially more effective with specific presenting problems.
The aim is individuation of the true self while maintaining a healthy connection to the family through the development of healthy boundaries, autonomy, self-awareness, and wholeness while detaching from any enmeshment that might exist.
Initial Family sessions are two hours, with subsequent meetings 50-90 minutes.
Family estrangement and “going silent” within families are becoming increasingly common, particularly between parents and adult children, siblings, and extended family members. Rarely does a family rupture emerge from one moment alone. More often, distance is built slowly through years of accumulated disappointment, unresolved hurt, misattunement, rigid roles, unspoken expectations, betrayals, emotional injuries, or ways of relating that begin to feel intolerable to one or more members of the family system. People stop speaking, but they rarely stop carrying one another internally. Beneath the silence there is often a complicated mixture of grief, anger, longing, guilt, love, resentment, relief, and hope. The attachment remains even when the relationship no longer does.
Clinicians such as Dr. Joshua Coleman have written about the increasing prevalence of adult child estrangement and the painful confusion these fractures can create within modern families. At times, distance may represent a necessary boundary after longstanding dysfunction, trauma or repeated emotional injury. In other families, people become locked inside defensive narratives, inherited wounds, shame, polarization, or the need to preserve a particular version of the story.
For some there are differing needs around autonomy, closeness, identity, and emotional expression. Family members may genuinely love one another while experiencing the relationship in profoundly different ways shaped by temperament, attachment history, neurodiversity, personality structure or developmental experiences. Over time, what begins as misunderstanding can harden into estrangement.
Family therapy can create space to slow these cycles down and examine what has become unspeakable between people who once mattered deeply to one another. Reconciliation is not always possible. But greater understanding, differentiation, honesty, mourning, and healing often are.
For families who travel from out of the South Florida area or simply want to jumpstart their journey to mending and restoring their emotional health, ‘intensives‘ are an option. In-depth work offered in a family intensive provides the opportunity for accelerated progress not otherwise offered in the traditional weekly format. Further, taking a ‘time out’ from daily life provides the space in which to be present and heal. Typically, these entail a two to three-day weekend format that is tailored to your needs. Please contact the office to discuss your unique scheduling needs.
I bring a unique sophisticated, integrative approach to family therapy, informed by deep clinical training and a strong foundation in object relations, attachment and relational theory. Having trained with outstanding trainers in the Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) world (Sue Johnson, Gail Palmer, Lisa-Palmer Olsen, George Faller, Jim Furrow, Ryan Rana), I am in an excellent position to help families across the globe.
I am the only psychologist in Florida who is a sexologist, is Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) trained, and holds certifications in discernment counseling, sex therapy, sex addiction, EMDR, group therapy, hypnosis, and telehealth. With my help, your current family relationships can move towards a new way of being.
As family members can be spread throughout the globe, I will take into consideration your special circumstance, including your physical distance, and make an appointment (in time and duration) suitable for your needs. Holding licenses in Florida and New York, and as an active member of PSYPACT, enables me to work with individuals in most states and locations.
You can read more on the intensives here and at southfloridaintensives.com.
Whether you’re facing conflict, transition, or emotional distance, family therapy can help you reconnect and grow together. Call today to schedule your consultation or explore our intensive options for faster progress.
Your family’s story can change. Whether you’re facing conflict, transition, or emotional distance, family therapy can help you reconnect and grow together. Call today to schedule your consultation or explore our intensive options for faster progress.