Families can experience illness, divorce or other problems that create conflict and stress. Family therapy can help families identify and resolve problems. Your family can be your greatest source of support, comfort and love. But it can also be your greatest source of pain and grief. A health crisis, mental illness, work problems or teenage rebellion may threaten to tear your family apart.

Family therapy can help your family weather such storms. Family therapy can help patch strained relationships, teach new coping skills and improve how your family works together. Whether it's you, your partner, a child or even a sibling or parent who's in crisis, family therapy can help all of you communicate better and learn to get along.

Family therapy, also referred to as couple and family therapy and family systems therapy, is a branch of psychotherapy that works with families and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development.

Family therapy assumes that the family as a whole is larger than the sum of its parts. Family therapy may also be used to draw upon the strengths of a social network to help address a problem that may be completely externally caused rather than created or maintained by the family.

Family therapy helps families or individuals within a family understand and improve the way family members interact with each other and resolve conflicts.

Family therapy is often short term. You usually attend one session a week, typically for three to five months. In some cases, though, families may need more intensive treatment. The treatment plan will depend on your family's specific situation.

Family therapy has been used effectively where families, and or individuals in those families experience or suffer:

Your family may do family therapy along with other types of mental health treatment, especially if one of you has a serious mental illness that also requires intense individual therapy. Family therapy isn't a substitute for other necessary treatments. For instance, family therapy can help family members cope if a relative has schizophrenia. But the person with schizophrenia should continue with his or her individualized treatment plan, such as medication and possibly hospitalization.

How does family therapy work? Family therapy often brings entire families together in therapy sessions. This is why I offer psychotherapy and counselling to clients in the privacy of their own homes.

However, family members may also see a family therapist individually. Family therapy can even include non-family members, such as teachers, other health care providers or representatives of social services agencies.

Working with a family therapist, you and your family will examine your family's ability to solve problems and express thoughts and emotions. You may explore family roles, rules and behaviour patterns in order to spot issues that contribute to conflict. Family therapy may help you identify your family's strengths, such as caring for one another, and weaknesses, such as an inability to confide in one other.

Family therapy can help you pinpoint your specific concerns and assess how your family is handling them. Guided by your therapist, you'll learn new ways to interact and overcome old problems. You'll set individual and family goals and work on ways to achieve them.

How much do I charge?

Our mental health services  are generally cost-effective.

Rates vary from about £50 to £90 per session. The average is about £60. Since most counsellors see couples one session a week for the first three months, you can expect to pay about £720 in that period of time if it's at about £60/hr. Most of my clients have paid under £600 by the time they've completed therapy. But some counselling can continue weekly for as long as two years before the problems have been resolved...

Click here to learn more about our fees.