Be ready to grow, together. Gay, straight, non-binary; open, monogamous, fluid: there is every type of coupled relationship. Couples therapy aims to help you find comfort and support in your one person, the person you turn to and build a life with.
Couples ready for this work want to give their relationship a chance. They want to heal their relationship wounds, regardless of the outcome that this healing brings.
Couples therapy works when both partners have interest in looking at their own part in what has gone sour. If either partner is an addict, they need to be committed to sobriety. And, any suicidal intentions have to be tended to in individual therapy before couples therapy can begin.
You both have to want to live and grow.
Family therapy can help repair and strengthen your bonds with one another. We all develop patterns, rules and roles in order to function in a family. Sometimes these need to shift as we grow; sometimes they are unhealthy from the start.
Families ready for therapy are prepared to recognize that people aren’t problems. Problems are problems. Often, family therapy work will begin with an assessment of family patterns with as many members of the immediate family as possible, and will then move on to work with individuals or dyads (for example, a father and daughter or a mother and grandmother). Intermittent, larger family sessions can be expected throughout treatment.
If you are a parent and find yourself exhausted and feeling like you need support around how you parent, therapy can help. If you and your coparent are at odds with one another about how to support your child, therapy can help.
This service is less about coaching and getting parenting “right.” Instead, we will explore the emotional paths that show up for you as a parent, and how those came to be. Emotions are exquisite tools that guide us in our parenting, sometimes helpfully, and sometimes not. Children and teens read us sometimes faster than we read ourselves, and no matter how well we might say something, they will know what we are feeling and they will respond to that.
The old airplane oxygen mask metaphor really does hold: tend to yourself first so that you can be safe enough to tend to your children. I'd just add this exception to the metaphor: all of you can do more than survive: you can thrive.
Love comes in all shapes and sizes, with all kinds of names: non-traditional relationships, poly-pods, ethical non-monogamy, open marriages. You get to define your own love life. What matters in this work is how your relationships are able to support the system that you create, and the people in it.
Therapy for polyamorous relationships deconstructs the assumptions of dominant monogamous relationship structures in society. It involves careful listening. Together, we will aim to help you and your partners identify your needs and desires, some met and some unmet, some perhaps even unknown. It helps you to name your unique boundaries and roles, and to communicate them throughout life's changes, even as they may shift.
Are you looking for support in how you engage with loved ones in your life? Are you struggling to connect? Are you angry or annoyed with people important to you?
Individual therapy here is geared towards adults looking to find more connection in their lives. It often means exploring your family of origin and how your emotional system guided you in that family system, how that helps guide you now, but also how it may be able to be adjusted or even rewired based on new relationships you’ve found along the way.
This service can be helpful in healing depression, anxiety and PTSD, and in managing ADHD and how it impacts relationships. It is not well suited for people experiencing repeated thoughts of suicide or active addiction to alcohol or drugs. If this is you, we recommend a treatment center or program, to help you find stability first.
Stay tuned for Clinical Supervision services for Licensed Marriage and Family Therapy candidates in the State of Oregon, sometime in 2025!
