At Family Success Consortium, we place a high priority on families, and believe that helping families achieve success is often more beneficial than focusing on a single family member. In fact, often times a child will be singled out as the ‘identified patient,’ but once insight is gained into the child’s difficulties, it becomes clear that their problems are actually reflections of broader family problems and painful patterns of relating. Left unaddressed, these painful family patterns tend to cause withdrawal, anxiety, or out of control behaviors. Families can become disconnected or simply coexist in a state of tension.
As with any organically-based system, all family systems strive toward development and health. Unfortunately, because the interactions among family members are so complex, family systems frequently hit barriers or blocks in their drive toward development and health. Often, the barriers that families hit recur generation after generation. Highlighting these barriers and patterns of interaction can help the family system move towards healthy functioning.
Family psychotherapy teaches and facilitates communication, connection, and caring within the family. However, this does not necessarily mean that the psychologist will see the entire family together all of the time. Rather, our model involves working within subsystems of the family, meeting with parents, and then meeting separately with children. This therapy structure allows for more full and truthful disclosures of feelings and perceptions, which form the foundation for truth and love, the roots of healthy change.
- Call our office and schedule an initial evaluation. We will meet with parents first, then the child or children.
- We will evaluate the family subsystems and coordinate with the parents to develop the treatment plan. This may involve more formal psychological assessments to help the family understand underlying personality characteristics or dynamics that are affecting the family as a whole.
- Initiate family therapy program.
- Periodically assess progress and adjust the treatment plan as needed until goals are achieved.
- Is my family a candidate for family therapy?
- While there are no universally agreed-upon signs of family dysfunction, the relationship quiz below may help you identify negative family patterns for which family psychotherapy may be helpful.
While there are no universally agreed-upon signs of family dysfunction, the relationship quiz below may help you identify negative family patterns for which family psychotherapy may be helpful.
Family Relationship Quiz
| Yes | No | ||
| 1. | The children seem "in charge" of the family. | ||
| 2. | Parents feel guilty saying "no" to the kids. | ||
| 3. | My child / teenager is "out of control". | ||
| 4. | I feel like I'm "lousing touch" with my teenager / child. | ||
| 5. | As parents we have difficulty working together to discipline our children. | ||
| 6. | I am a single parent and overwhelmed. | ||
| 7. | Our child is acting out/seems sad/seems nervous and we don’t know why. | ||
| 8. | There is a tense atmosphere in our home. | ||
| 9. | We would like to be closer as a family. | ||
| 10. | Our communication as a family is not as clear as we would like it to be. | ||
Psychologists associated with this program
Mark K. Evans, PsyD
John M. Tidd, PsyD
Margaret J. Rinck, EdD
