Family Therapy

“When parents offer their children empathy and help them to cope with negative feelings like anger, sadness, and fear, parents build bridges of loyalty and affection.”

― John M. Gottman

What’s Family Therapy?

Our approach at New Paths Counseling is rooted in an evidence based, ecological systems model, Ecosystemic Structural Family Therapy (ESFT). The family is a system structured with various inner-connected, interdependent, and interrelated parts. In therapy, we explore the interactions between each member of the family and learn how these interactions create patterns which influences the functioning of the entire system. 

The four pillars addressed in family therapy are:

  • Executive Functioning: Within any system, there must be structure and order. In a family, the caregivers are the models for their children and our necessary in providing structure. The manner in which we guide and support our children will have lasting influences on who they currently are, how they interact, and how they will form healthy future relationships.

  • Co-parenting Alliance: Caregivers working together is instrumental in raising children, and equally important within the relationship between caregivers. Through healthy guidance and working together, children learn fundamental traits of love, compassion, compromise, discipline, and forgiveness. Additionally, when parents parent together, children recognize the structure and consistency which are necessary for healthy family interactions.

  • Emotional Regulation: In therapy, we learn to communicate our needs. Learning how to regulate our emotions is important for healthy communication, strengthening attachments, and increasing general wellness. 

  • Attachment: Attachments are safe and secure bonds. In family therapy, our primary goal is to strengthen attachments between and among family members. 

How can New Paths Counseling help?

Family therapy can help strengthen attachments by addressing core negative interactional patterns (CNIP). Through the ESFT model, we develop underlying emotional needs which perpetuate the pattern or dysfunctional cycle. Most importantly, our aim in therapy to help you as a family experience one another differently in order to develop new interactional patterns and regain homeostasis or balance. 

TREATMENT GOAL EXAMPLES: 

  • Strengthen attachment

  • Learn, practice, and implement emotional regulation skills

  • Strengthen co-parenting alliance

  • Increase quality time as a family

  • Reduce tension

  • Create a safe environment

  • Develop deeper understandings of one another

  • Learn effective communication skills

Case Studies and Testimonials

  • “We see each other differently than we did before. I actually feel that I can have a discussion without massive blow ups”. Thank you, Sean”. SV

  • “We talk about you throughout the course of our week. The skills and discussions we have in session resonant with us. And, when we speak of you in our home, it helps us to get back on track”.  BT

  • “We trust you. We all trust you”. KO  

Support helps. Understanding our loved ones can restore peace.