Your family is defined by you. You may connect ‘family’ to your immediate family unit or include the extended family, adopted or blood-related relatives, or maybe you relate ‘family’ to the significant people in your life. You might be a single-parent, or parents of children from different biological parents, you may be in a same-sex relationship, or in mix-race or multi-cultural relationships living apart. You tell me who your family is and we can work together on supporting your family with the difficulties that you are facing.

Families encounter difficulties of many types and sources. It could be that a family member becomes ill, impacting the whole family; or it may be that the difficulty is on communication or relationships and the dynamics created; or there might be family expectations or patterns of behaviour established over time that became difficult to change or to accept; you might be a parent or parents worried about your child or children.

Family therapy can help you and your family members to better understand and support one another. A fully qualified family and systemic psychotherapist is equipped to support all those in relationships to safely express and explore their difficulties, to gain perspective on each other’s views and needs, to build on individuals’ and group’ strengths and to work together to make useful changes in their relationships and lives.

I offer sessions to families of various configurations and cultures, working flexibly to attend to all family members’ perspectives and needs. Family members might have varying commitments and willingness to start therapy. We can discuss ways in which to try to engage everyone but there may be circumstances in which we start the work with those most willing or ready for changes while holding in mind those who are not attending the sessions.

Some areas of difficulties that families look for professional support:

• Relationship difficulties: The difficulties could be among family members or from other contexts affecting the family: family conflicts, couple disharmony, parenting difficulties, siblings discord, friendship strains, work problems, disparity in social or affiliation groups.
• Patterns of communication, behaviour, and ways of expressing emotions: Each individual will have their own communication style, ways of expressing emotions and a set of behaviours that can become challenging in the interaction with others.
• Life and family transitions: Some changes are part of a natural process and others may be unexpected, either way they can be difficult to navigate: birth of a child, moving to new school, children moving out, change of jobs, retirement, relocation, couple separation or divorce, new family formations, illnesses, new caring responsibilities, loss and bereavement, the list is endless.
• Serious mental health problems or life-long conditions or diversities: When one family member becomes ill or has a life-long condition, it affects the whole family and conversely how the family members respond to the situation will affect the person in focus: anxiety, depression, trauma, eating disorders, psychosis, learning difficulties, ADHD, autism, living with a physical illness.
• Cultures or family scripts and expectations: Many families are from mixed cultures but even within the same culture, families will bring a range of social and family values, expectations and lived experiences that can be difficult to negotiate or embrace.
• Individual, family and social identities: Our identity is multi-layered and is in constant interaction with the contexts which we are part of. Families tend to develop their own shared culture and identity while holding similarities and differences between family members and within the wider society: race and ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, gender identity, faith and religion, appearance, age and maturation, ability/disability, educational, professional choices are some of many.

If you are not sure if I can help you with your specific problem and want to discuss it further, get in touch, I offer a 30-minute initial consultation at no charge. 

Read testimonials from my clients and supervisors.

For more information on Family Therapy visit AFT FAQs website: AFT - What is Family Therapy