Family Counselling Therapy

Families are complex systems. Small issues can have far-reaching and deeply painful effects when compounded over time and between different family members, and larger ones often incapacitate the very people who are meant to steer the ship.

The first signs of family issues are often behavioural; a child is acting out or withdrawing, or a partner is avoiding home. Whatever it is can be traced back to being about relationship; how things feel and play out inside the family. In the same way as couples work is about nurturing a relationship, family work is about the same, with a focus on the attachment relationships between parent and child.

Our approach to family work is about building safety in the relationship between parent and child, knowing that from that secure base everyone can operate more freely. This is not to say that parenting is the cause of all issues, but to say that it is the aspect that we have the most control over; the first tool we must work with.

This approach draws heavily on Dan Hughes' model of Attachment Focused Family Therapy which, built from his work with adoption and foster care, brings relationships into focus by emphasizing playfulness, acceptance, curiosity, and empathy. These aspects and more can be cultivated and coached into even very painful relationships.