Family Therapy
in Houston, TX and Online
Are you feeling exhausted, overwhelmed and defeated by ongoing issues in your family?
Do you wish you could bring your family together? To learn effective ways to communicate and find a way to move forward with mutual respect, stability and cooperation? Working with a family therapist can help you and your loved ones find peace and connection again.
Navigating Family Challenges Is Hard
Regardless of what you and your family members are going through, figuring out how to navigate disagreements, mental health issues, grief and loss, divorce and children, blended family, marriage and family problems and so much more can be exhausting, frustrating and disheartening. And, family issues can arise at any time and during any stage of life. You may be an adult child who doesn’t know how to foster healthy communication and set boundaries with a parent. Alternately, you might feel hurt and helpless when it comes to your strained relationship with adult children who live outside of the home. Or perhaps your child has a mental health condition or developmental challenge that is putting strain on your marriage. You may disagree on parenting strategies or simply find yourselves too overwhelmed to cope. Whether you are parenting young adults, teenagers or children, or trying to manage adult relationships with siblings or parents, it may seem as though you can’t make your family happy, no matter how hard you try. No family is perfect, and it’s completely normal to face challenges and struggle to navigate varying family dynamics. Family units are made up of unique, complex individuals with their own ideas, hopes and needs. Sometimes, those ideas, hopes and needs don’t align. As you go through life together, you’re bound to experience differences and face challenges.
All Families Go Through Shifts and Changes
Families and couples can encounter a wide range of internal and external hurdles, from layoffs and moves to addiction and illness. Over the years, many families find themselves struggling to cope with both the expected (e.g. the birth of a new child) and the unexpected (e.g. a distressing diagnosis). And, even when you understand the source of family conflict or a particular challenge, it can be difficult to know how to offer every family member the support, patience and attention he or she needs.
What is Family Therapy?
Family counseling helps families communicate more effectively, increase connection and establish healthy family dynamics. Family therapy also helps you learn how to address conflicts, changes, and challenges respectfully. At its core, family therapy is a service that focuses on the inner workings of your family structure and how you relate to one another. For example, your child might be entering new stages of life and having some difficulties. Perhaps you are struggling because your usual parenting style isn’t having the same results on what may seem like an entirely new child. If you have recently divorced, have a new child, lost a loved one, or even have a new blended family, working with a family therapist can help you navigate it all while keeping your family intact and full of love.
Couples and Families Benefit From Family Therapy Sessions
For some families, challenges can be more difficult to identify. You may know that your child is talking back or breaking rules, but feel lost when you try to figure out why. Troubles with children may place a strain on your marriage. You may know that your co-parent ignores your wishes, but question what more you could do to get him or her to listen. To make matters more complicated, guidebooks, Internet tips and loved ones can offer conflicting advice that never quite fits your particular family. There are many types of families. What is needed to build healthy family patterns in your unique family situation may be different from what you grew up with. Few of us receive education in resolving sibling conflict, helping children and adolescents cope with divorce or any other real-life issues that families face. Thankfully, whether you need help with an unhealthy family dynamic or getting over a specific roadblock, there is hope. With the individualized guidance and support of a therapist who specializes in family counseling, you can help your entire family resolve pressing issues, develop new problem-solving skills and begin to truly work as a team. Both couples and families benefit from marriage and family therapy.
Family Therapy Can Help Your Family Communicate, Cooperate and Connect
At Eddins Counseling Group, we know that every person has a different way of understanding the world, responding to stressors and trying to problem solve and relate. Our team of therapists is trained in therapy techniques to help each individual and each individual family find solutions and strategies that work for them. In family counseling sessions, you and your family members can develop skills for healthy family communication and learn how to interact in supportive, productive ways. Unlike individual therapy, marital and family therapy considers the role each person plays in the overall family dynamic. The interaction between family members is also important. It can seem like one person or one issue is the primary source of familial conflict (identified patient). In truth, families work as a system. The most obvious problem is likely an indicator of a deeper misalignment in communication styles, wants and needs. Even if you know that one family member is struggling more than others, your family therapist can help you understand that no person is the problem – instead, the problem is the problem. For example, if one child is acting out or throwing tantrums, his or her behavior is the problem. The child is just a child responding to situations or events that he or she doesn’t know how to manage. Instead of trying to “fix” the child, you can begin to shift how you respond to tantrums and identify ways to prevent them in the future. No matter what the “problem” may be, you and your family members can learn how to stop assigning blame and start discovering solutions that create a nurturing home environment for everyone. In family therapy sessions, family members understand how their reactions lead to different responses and reactions in others.
Family Counseling FAQ's
Families are busy, and we know how hard it can be to find a time that fits with everyone’s schedule. It’s not necessary for every family member to attend each and every session.
However, because a family is a system, it can be important for immediate family members that live together and often interact to understand how they influence and are influenced by one another. If it seems as though one family member is struggling more than others, family sessions are appropriate for anyone who plays a supportive role in that person’s family life.
It’s never too late to learn better ways to interact with your loved ones. It can be difficult to maintain a connected relationship with adult children, especially as they move away and create families and lives of their own. Working with a therapist can help you and your adult children resolve past wounds, navigate healthy boundaries and adapt to your new roles in each other’s lives.
Despite appearances, no family is perfect, and everyone needs help from time to time. If your family is struggling to adjust to a difficult transition or engaging in the same repetitive arguments, an experienced and compassionate family therapist can help. Your therapist can offer individualized tools to help your family address and overcome issues now, as well as in the future.
Family systems are complex. Everyone can benefit from the goals of family therapy. Improve communication, build healthy relationships, increase connection, trust, and safety. Some families may only need brief therapy to get on track while others may need additional family therapy sessions. Ultimately, it’s about solving family problems, goal setting and learning new skills, which anyone can benefit from.
Individual therapy focuses on the patterns, experiences, behaviors and feelings of just one person. Family therapy takes a look at the environment that person lives in and seeks to understand how all factors at play within an environment influence behavior.
Your family therapist will look at your whole family system—how everyone responds and reacts to one another—to understand where issues are arising. Once everyone has an idea of what the core issues are, your therapist can help your family work together to improve communication, renegotiate rules or roles and better address the needs of all family members.
Our therapists work with families of all shapes, sizes and structures. When appropriate, you can use family counseling sessions to augment or support work that an individual may be doing with another therapist. For example, if someone in your family is struggling with an eating disorder, bipolar disorder, or other mental illness, a family counselor can help parents, siblings, etc. learn how to best support that person’s recovery.
Or, when helping children cope with divorce, you may decide that a combination of one-on-one child counseling sessions and family sessions best suits your child’s needs. We understand that every family is different. We are here to help you determine a flexible treatment plan that works for your unique situation, family life, concerns and therapy goals.
You and your family don’t have to stay stuck in dysfunctional patterns of conflict, avoidance or miscommunication. No matter what your family looks like, there is hope and help. A compassionate, objective trained marriage and family counselor can help you gain a new perspective, understand each person’s role in the family system and create a harmonious family unit. Building and preserving positive family relationships is one of the primary benefits of family therapy.
Most of our family, teen and child therapists offer afternoon, evening and weekend sessions so you can attend therapy without missing work or school.
If family members are spread apart or driving from different parts of town, online family therapy sessions might be a better fit. Online family therapy sessions require access to a computer with a connected camera and strong wi-fi signal.
Let us know your needs, and we will do our best to accommodate your family’s schedule.
Family Counseling Helps Families Communicate
At Eddins Counseling Group, we understand how hard parenting can be. Especially when your family is going through a challenging time. Our marriage and family therapists are trained to assess your unique family situation and build skills to improve your family relationships. We are dedicated to offering compassionate support and guidance, as well as practical tools and strategies you can use to restore balance and care in your family. Take the next step towards healthy living and an improved family situation.
Get Help From a Specialist in Family Therapy
Erica Billings
Erica specializes in working with new parents including adoptive parents and LGBTQ+ families and people who are experiencing grief, death, berea…
BOOK AN APPOINTMENT
Greta Bellinger
Greta’s passion is to help individuals live an authentic and meaningful life through self-acceptance and compassion. She provides a space of emp…
BOOK AN APPOINTMENT
Holly Lark
Holly specializes in working with adolescents, adults, and women. She is passionate about helping clients work through life transitions, behavio…
BOOK AN APPOINTMENT
Jennifer Castro
With over 10 years of experience in the mental health field, Jennifer is passionate about helping you work through grief, anxiety, OCD, disorder…
BOOK AN APPOINTMENT
Jennifer Oates
Jennifer hopes to help you reach your academic, professional, and/or personal pursuits. She has experience working with women, military, first r…
BOOK AN APPOINTMENT
Jessie Blakely
Jessie has over 10 years of experience working with children, adolescents, young adults, parents, and families. She specializes in a range of ne…
BOOK AN APPOINTMENT
Kelsey Engdorf
Kelsey enjoys working with teens, young adults, and couples to help them build the lives they want and make meaningful changes.
BOOK AN APPOINTMENT
Lizz Calderon-Mullens
I work with children, adolescents, families, and young adults to help with anxiety, depression, spiritual, and relational concerns.
BOOK AN APPOINTMENT
Maggie Burkett
Maggie enjoys working with children, teens, and adults experiencing trauma, anxiety, depression, abuse, PTSD, self-harm, etc. Maggie is also a c…
BOOK AN APPOINTMENT
Marcie Dinkin
Marcie works with parents, young adults, and teens, together or individually, to assess what the major issues and roadblocks are, address any hu…
BOOK AN APPOINTMENT
Samantha Birnbaum
Sam specializes in working with teens, adults, and families that are struggling with depression, anxiety, body image & eating disorders, addicti…
BOOK AN APPOINTMENT
Steven Serrano
Steven is a bilingual (English & Spanish) psychotherapist. Steven’s experience includes counseling individuals, couples, families and teens in t…
BOOK AN APPOINTMENT
Vanessa Guidry
Vanessa works with children, teens, young adults and families. She helps with behavioral concerns, emotional stress such as anxiety, anger and d…
BOOK AN APPOINTMENTWhat Clients Are Saying
Huge Help for Our Family
We really like our therapist and feel she is a huge help to our family. Our daughter is comfortable speaking freely with her and looks forward to her sessions. We are happy with the Eddins Counseling group.
Alabama