Family counseling in Antioch, IL. Honest and effective help for couples, relationships and blended families in and around Antioch, Illinois. Family therapy is complex nowadays exacerbated by high divorce rates and blended families. There's an necessary built-in awareness and empathy that has to exist in order to help these families. It requires more than knowledge and understanding, but rather an ability to read, interpret and redirect not one individual but an entire group of individuals who are invested in each other and needing insight, guidance and intervention.
Not easy. Family Systems theory drives my work in this realm. It's all about the relationship and the impact each person has on the other. I've been trained in Gottman Couples Therapy - a leading expert in this area.
My greatest desire and joy is to meet with families who want to learn how to communicate better in the home, to listen to each other, respect each other and in short, to get along well. I counsel from my belief that the mother and father are the leaders of their family. However, I treat each individual family member with the respect they deserve, and by listening to and addressing each family member's issues within the family.
I used Person-Centered, Family Systems and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in working with families, because I believe these counseling theories work best in the 'real world' where families really live, dealing with REAL problems in getting along with each other. Riverside Dr. Does it seem like your family is just off? Sometimes, the adults think that a child is root cause of an issue, but many times they may be the symptom to a bigger family issue.
Many times I work with kids whose behaviors have escalated, and parents are looking for support. I then walk alongside them and the child to help identify the symptoms, the underlying issues as a family, and work towards living a more fulfilling life. Most times youth learn new ways to cope, as well as parents learning to decipher the codes that kids are trying to tell us.
