Family Systems

My background in recovery and work in a treatment setting has given me thorough knowledge and appreciation for using a family systems approach in therapy. This means I will understand you through the lens of the family you come from, how those roles, messages, rules, and experiences have helped to shape who you are, your relationships, and how to facilitate healing in these areas.

Family systems training and perspective is a core part of my training as an MFT- in graduate school, I completed 60+ credits, primarily focused on family/couples therapy.

Taking a look at generational patterns that have been passed down. Understanding a client's family of origin is extremely helpful in understanding the client on a deeper level.

I am also trained in Family Systems and use this approach to help clients deal with family issues/concerns by helping them understand their roles in their families and learn how these roles affect the way they treat each other and experience the outside world.

No matter where we come from, all family systems are complex. Our original families play a big part in our current families. Or maybe we are having a hard time creating the partnership or family we want now because of what we have been through in life. Exploring the historical components that impact our relationships is key to increasing our healthy functioning.

MFT's are trained in systemic family therapy along every step of their education. I am skilled at looking at the whole picture - the "web" of each individual's life. In order to understand and meet where you are at, we will examine where you've been, and where you want to be.

Understanding family patterns can help us understand how we got to where we are today. Along with attachment theory, I use family systems to help clients build a picture of their past so they understand who they are in their relationships today, and can make choices about how they want to grow in relation to themselves and others.

I received specific training in understanding how each member can impact a family system and have worked on balancing out a system in the best interest of each family member.

I am trained as a couple and family therapist--but I bring in this perspective when I'm working with individuals, as well. To me this means considering the different places you exist--the family you grew up in, your family of creation, friendships, workplaces, communities, and cultures--and working to understand how all of these parts of your life impact you as a whole.

I enjoy helping clients process how they impact and are impacted by systems. Spanning ancestral, societal, interpersonal and intrapersonal contexts, we can discuss how you relate. I acknowledge that compassionate relationships to the whole comes with building capacity for accountability, boundaries and acknowledgement of power differentials.

I graduated with distinction from my Master's program in the study of family systems. Where traditional psychology looks inward towards the individual, family systems says the individual cannot be known until we know what systems they belong to. These systems start with the family, but also expand into community, state, country, and all manner of cultural systems. Exploring through a systems lens can often help an individual understand their identity in a stronger way.

Family Systems therapy looks at how each individual is connected to their family, community, culture and spirituality. People are wonderfully complicated and how you end up as you is a combination of many things, relationships and events that have happened throughout your life. True healing can begin when all these parts of you are looked at and healed through love, compassion, understanding and setting healthy boundaries.

I trained in family systems (structural family systems) in my experience working with children and families and was part of the training program at CHA/Harvard Postdoctoral Fellowship. I use my experience with family system approaches to support clients to change and improve their relationships (with their spouse, family, friends), improve their parenting skills and make changes in other relationships such as with their medical team or colleagues at work.

I have taken several trainings by top clinicians in the field and have integrated this approach into many of my sessions throughout my time as a counselor.

I've worked with families for the past 11 years and have experience with foster/adoptive, racial minority and LGBTQ families, adult children and families experiencing major life transitions.

I consider various systems that each person experiences in order to see the bigger picture. Each person is influenced by their family, community, school, location, etc. We are all affected by the world around us, and often our family systems are templates we use for other relationships.