Family therapy for the system everyone is inside.
Online sessions across Oregon. Family-systems oriented work for the conflict, the parenting, the adolescent stretches, and the work of staying connected through change. With attention to each person in the room.
Request a free 15-min consultation →The system, not just the symptoms.
Family therapy isn't a referee booth. The work isn't deciding who's right. It's working with the system you've built together, the patterns that have been running it, and what would have to change for the system to actually serve the people inside it.
Families come to therapy when something is loud enough that the usual workarounds aren't working anymore. A teenager in real distress. A divorce affecting the kids in ways no one knows how to talk about. A long-running pattern of conflict that's eating the relationships one fight at a time. Whatever brought you in, we treat it as a signal from the family system, not a problem with one person.
Family-systems work means we hold each person's experience as real, including the parts that sound wrong to everyone else. The work isn't getting the family to agree. It's helping each person see clearly enough to act differently inside the system, even when the rest of the system isn't changing yet.
We work in three directions: the patterns (what cycles the family keeps repeating, what each person's role in them is), the individual material (what each member brings into the room that doesn't belong to the family), and the practical (how the household functions, who carries what load, where the unspoken agreements need spoken).
Family work where no one is trying to win.
Family work is the rarer specialty in my practice and one of the most consequential. The room has more variables than individual work; that's what makes it harder, and that's what makes it worth doing well.
Family therapy is the rarer specialty in my practice and one of the parts I find most rewarding. It's harder than individual work because the room has more variables in it. It's also more interesting for the same reason. Watching a family see itself clearly is one of the most consequential things therapy can do.
I work from a family-systems lens, with attention to the attachment patterns each person brings. For families with adolescents, I integrate developmentally-appropriate framing so the teen isn't reduced to "the problem" and the parents aren't reduced to "the solution." For families with adult children, the work shifts into more equal-adult territory, which has its own structure.
Eighteen years has taught me that family therapy works best when no one is trying to win. When that posture isn't available yet, part of the early work is building it. We go at the pace the family can sustain, which is sometimes slower than anyone in the room would like and usually faster than they expect.
Questions I get asked about family therapy.
Who needs to come to family therapy?
It depends. Sometimes the most useful first session is with the parents alone. Sometimes it's the whole household. Sometimes it's an adult child and a parent without the rest of the family. We talk through the configuration early so the right people are in the room and the wrong dynamics aren't replicated in session.Will my teenager have to talk?
Not on day one. Adolescent reluctance to talk in family therapy is normal and not an obstacle. We work with what each person brings, including silence. Often the most important thing in early sessions is the teen seeing that their parent can hear something hard without making it about the parent.What if our family has very different ideas about what's wrong?
That's usually the starting point, not the problem. Family work involves making space for every person's version of what's happening, including the people whose version sounds wrong to everyone else. We're not trying to agree on a single story. We're trying to understand the actual system you're inside.Do you work with families with adult children?
Yes. Some of the most consequential family work happens when the kids are grown. Long-running patterns become more visible when nobody has to live together anymore. We do this work when both generations are willing to look at what they each bring.Does insurance cover family therapy in Oregon?
Sometimes. Family therapy is covered when there's a clinical diagnosis for one of the family members. Some plans cover family work directly; others bill it under the identified-patient model. We'd talk through the specifics. Self-pay is $250 per session.
Related work I do.
Couples therapy
Sometimes what looks like a family issue is really a couples issue with kids in the room. We sort that out early.
Read moreIndividual therapy
I see individual adults and adolescents alongside family work, often as part of the same larger picture.
Read moreAnxiety therapy
Adolescent anxiety often shows up as a family issue first. Individual work for the teen and family work for the household can pair well.
Read more
Ready to talk it through? Let's see if we're a fit.
Send a message, or set up a free 15-minute phone consult. You can reach me by email, call, or text. I'll get back to you within two business days.