CHILDREN AND FAMILY PSYCHOTHERAPY

 

Children, Tweens, and Teens

Children and adolescents often show you rather than tell you how they feel. This is because of their cognitive and language development. In therapy for children and adolescents, art, games, music, movement, or toys allow kids and teens to express what they cannot say with words. Play therapy or expressive therapies allows for a release of feelings and concerns while the psychotherapist reflects these to the child, tween, or teen so that they feel heard and understood. 

 

The psychotherapist can help translate what your child or teen is feeling and experiencing in order to give you tools to more effectively act as the secure base in your child’s life at home. Therapy for children and adolescents is confidential and the therapist will not give you a play-by-play of what your child did in therapy. Instead, they will give you overarching themes of what they are seeing so that you as the parent or caregiver can better understand or respond to your child’s inner-world. At the onset of therapy, the parent and therapist and child/teen will meet to set goals for and then will periodically assess your progress. Parents and caregivers can expect to meet to discuss your child’s progress about every 6-8 weeks. 

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Caregiver/Parent-Child Therapy

Ultimately, a psychotherapist will see your child for one hour of their lives per week, while you are with them for the other 167 hours in a week. While individual therapy for your child or teens is highly beneficial, it is possible that greater change comes when parents and caregivers can learn how to be the therapeutic agent in their child’s life. In parent/caregiver and child therapy, the psychotherapist can gain a better snapshot of the dynamics between you and your child in order to create a more functional and thereby, healing relationship. Children and parents may use many forms of creative expression to communicate their experiences, feelings, and needs. Through this work, caregivers/parents can learn (or re-learn) how to facilitate an environment in which their child or teenager can feel heard, safe, respected, valued and cherished.

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Family Therapy

Oftentimes, when any family member is struggling, it is a symptom of a struggle in the entire family system. Family systems work can be some of the most powerful to facilitate healing with children and teens. Family therapy can help you and your family (family of choice or family by blood) understand one another better and learn how to better communicate. In family therapy work, expressive and play therapy techniques may be used to tailor the approach to the youngest member of the family system.

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SOME OF OUR AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION FOR WORK WITH CHILDREN, TEENS, AND TWEENS INCLUDE:​​