Family Therapy in Sacramento, CA
Do You Want To Bring Your Family Closer?
- Are you an adult child whose relationship with your parents has become fractured?
- Or conversely, has your older child distanced themselves from you or set boundaries you don’t understand?
- If your family has drifted apart, are you hoping to find a way to heal old wounds and restore connection?
As An Adult Child…
Perhaps becoming a parent yourself has caused you to look back on your own childhood with a new perspective. Understanding your emotional needs more clearly, you may wish you had the type of parents you could lean on and know you were loved, safe, and accepted unconditionally. But rather than feeling supported and respected by them, maybe they push your boundaries routinely or don’t abide by your expectations when spending time with your children.
When you bring up your concerns, you might be met with defensiveness and feel attacked, rejected, misunderstood, and unsupported. Or maybe you’ve learned to bottle your feelings inside while being envious of friends who have close, loving relationships with their families.
As A Parent Of An Adult Child…
If your adult children now perceive their upbringing as emotionally scarring or abusive, you may feel confused and hurt by their interpretation. Looking back, you may believe you were a good parent who did their best and fInd their assessment overreactive and unfair. You can admit you weren’t perfect, but now it seems like they’re judging everything you did and don’t appreciate the sacrifices you made.
Additionally, being given rules to follow around your children and grandchildren may seem disrespectful to you. If you’re unable to spend as much time with your grandchildren as you’d like, you might be desperate to do what it takes to clear the air.
Despite the current disconnect, your family may desire to grow closer and find a path forward. Fortunately, family therapy offers emotionally-based approaches centered on reconnection and healing.
Older Families Often Struggle To Remain Close
As families mature, maintaining close relationships between parents and children can be challenging. Childhood experiences often cast long shadows over adult relationships, potentially leading to conflict or estrangement.
When family dynamics are strained, the members who voice their concerns often get labeled as troublemakers, prompting them to set boundaries or cut contact. Others attempt to quell conflict by making peace, but their efforts can be perceived as dismissive, which complicates relationships further.
Shifting Societal Norms Have Made Generational Divides Between Family Members More Common
With the rise of social media, discussions about trauma have become more prevalent. Many adults of childbearing age are now more aware of how intergenerational trauma affects them and are motivated to break the cycle with their children.
Today’s Gen Xers and millennials—children of the boomer generation—were often subjected to parenting styles seen as abusive today, such as “the silent treatment”, “tough love”, or other authoritarian tactics. Having a deeper understanding of the kind of emotional support needed in childhood has led these generations to adopt significantly different parenting approaches in their own families.
Unsurprisingly, these generational clashes frequently cause tension, as parents defend their methods or fail to grasp why their children have grown distant or set boundaries around time spent with the grandchildren. Raised by the silent generation, they may not recognize the emotional support their children seek. These disconnects perpetuate cycles of intergenerational trauma that impact all family members.
If you’re a family with a mutual willingness to reconnect, therapy can help. Working with a family therapist, you can learn to actively listen, understand multiple perspectives, and ultimately find common ground.
Therapy Can Help Your Family Heal And Grow Closer
Family conflict is often the result of each member loving each other but feeling misunderstood and abandoned when they express their hurts. You each long to feel closer, yet remain fearful that any attempt to voice your concerns will end up launching the same old argument, where nothing changes. Even when all family members crave closeness and want to restore connection, you may feel stuck.
Family counseling is a safe, non-judgmental environment where each member will feel seen, heard, and validated. Therapy can help your family move on from past painful experiences—such as grief or trauma—heal unhealthy patterns of communication, and, if applicable, address family of origin and multicultural issues that may complicate your dynamics.
What To Expect In Sessions
Depending on the preferences of the family and therapist, each counseling session will either be attended by every family member or may include some breakout sessions with fewer members. For example, our first session may be with parents, the next with their adult children, and then attended jointly thereafter. We also offer online therapy to make group sessions more convenient and can also provide individual therapy with another counselor if recommended and/or desired.
Family therapy will often include:
Active listening techniques to ensure everyone feels safe and supported throughout counseling.
Healthy communication skills that allow all members to express how they feel and what they need without blaming or shaming anyone else.
Psychoeducation about trauma to help family members understand their experiences at a deeper level.
Boundary setting that promotes safety and connection between all family members.
Unifying conversations that bring family members feel loved and understood.
We Offer Trauma-Informed Family Counseling
The counselors at Love Heal Grow provide trauma-informed care and utilize Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT). Drawing from the principles of attachment-based science, EFFT helps recognize and acknowledge the underlying emotional wounds that fuel most family arguments.
When families get stuck in patterns of conflict, each member usually tries to protect themselves from further hurt, either by getting angry or shutting down. In EFFT, you’ll be encouraged to be vulnerable enough to share your hurts, promoting understanding and healing. Identifying these patterns and getting to the root of the pain allows you to understand each other differently, promoting a greater awareness of every member’s needs.
Despite having any reservations that family therapy will be helpful, it’s always possible to heal our relationships when we love people. By putting in the effort and committing to counseling, you can have the connection with your family you have always hoped for. Even if the end result isn’t exactly what you’d envisioned initially, finding a workable common ground where everyone has made some compromise can bring your family closer than they’ve ever been before.
But Maybe You’re Not Sure If Therapy Is Right For Your Family…
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Will airing our dirty laundry in family counseling make things worse?
Understandably, you may doubt therapy will be effective if previous attempts to make things better with family members have led to blow-ups and hurt feelings. A therapist recognizes the patterns that arise within family dynamics and can help you slow the conversation down so everyone feels heard and understood. Healing may bring some pain along with it, but your counselor will help you process that pain effectively and arrive at a better place as a family.
I worry I’ll be judged for seeing a family therapist.
Even after making so much progress in destigmatizing mental health in our society, you may still worry that going to family therapy means there’s something wrong with you. But all families have past experiences to heal from—therapy allows us to demonstrate your deep love and commitment by showing up for each other.
How can we be sure our family counselor won’t take sides?
Many of us experience the pain of being judged by loved ones or feeling abandoned as family and friends decide whose “side” they’re on. However, each family therapist at Love Heal Grow is committed to hearing all sides. We understand that deep pain happens in loving relationships for many different reasons. Because we all have different ways of reaching out for support or trying to communicate, our bids for connection might be misunderstood or unnoticed by others. In therapy, we help you bridge that divide and get on the same page.
With A Willingness To Listen And Remain Open, You Can Heal Family Wounds
It’s time to turn the page on the past and create a closer connection together. To find out more about in-person or online family therapy with us, please visit our contact page.
Love Heal Grow Therapists:
Joanna de Leon, AMFT (Online Only, she/her)
Abby Hollandsworth, AMFT (she/they)
Justine Marine, AMFT (she/her)
Susan DuBay, LMFT (she/they)
Madison Hamzy, LMFT (she/her)
Jamie Silva, AMFT (she/her)
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Family Therapy In Sacramento
2430 K St, Sacramento, CA 95816
