Counseling Approach 

Needs and resources change as families grow. I strive to help families to make meaning of their experiences through sharing them. As a parent myself, I am fascinated by the twists and turns family relationships take, flexing as they must to accommodate new members and milestones. The needs of your whole family will be considered in smoothing transitions, easing challenges, and creating lasting change. Depending on the age of your child/ren, family dynamics, and goals for therapy, I may offer 1-on-1 counseling, family therapy, parent coaching, or a support group. 

Photo credit: Ozyman (Flickr, 2003)

As an interactive, strengths-focused therapist, I'll collaborate with you toward workable solutions and offer concrete ideas for finding more support, connection, and joy in your family life. Combining traditional and creative approaches, I often bring humor and playfulness--even to serious problems. I emphasize the power of relationships, play, self-awareness, and expressive art in my work with clients. I use several approaches in helping family members understand one another's perspective, including ideas from these theories:

  • Contextual Therapy encourages empathy for one another's perspective, emphasizing how loyalty, family roles, and personal history shape relationships 
  • Relational-Cultural Theory highlights how identity, connection, and social context shape our experiences
  • Psychodynamic Theory says that past experience and normal developmental shifts influence how we navigate and make sense of the world
  • Family Systems & Social Ecology recognize individuals as part of a larger whole--in families and larger social groups--where behavior is learned, tested, sustained, and finally adapted to meet new relationship needs

With regard to adoption-specific concerns, we will examine together where related issues--institutional care, early neglect or trauma, separation & loss, attachment, and resiliency--may overlap with typical child and family development. For people who are adopted, another layer of identity development and sense of connectedness is often taking shape during the growing-up years and beyond.