Counseling, Mediation, and Consultation
If you hope to make changes in an important relationship, and the other person (or persons) are willing, seeking help together may make sense.
If you and your partner have concerns about your relationship, couple counseling may be an option. If you meet with me for couple counseling, you can expect to meet with me together most of the time, and to work on changing the ways in which you interact with each other. There may be homework, or structured exercises, that will help you to progress more quickly, and solidify the changes you are making in your counseling sessions. Occasionally, I may want to meet with each of you alone briefly, however my focus will be on improving your relationship, rather than on what each individual party may want. Couple counseling may not be appropriate in some cases. If not, I will generally advise you to use a different strategy.
Family counseling is often ideal for addressing problems in family functioning, such as poor communication, conflict, disagreements about parenting, or concerns that focus on children. In family counseling, you can expect to meet with me in various combinations, which I will recommend. For instance, I may address child-related problems by alternately meeting with the parents one time, and with either the child or the child and parents together the next time. The structure of our meetings, and who attends them, is determined by the problem(s) we are addressing together, and the current functioning of your family.
Mediation is a form of conflict resolution, in which a neutral third party (mediator) helps the conflicting parties to discuss and resolve their conflict. Sometimes the mediator also puts their agreements into writing. Mediation is very frequently used during divorce, to settle disputes over child custody and residential schedules, and/or property and financial issues. Mediation can also be helpful in a variety of other situations, such as helping conflicted employees work together more effectively, or resolving other family or workplace conflicts.
The most common cause of conflict between couples and in families is disagreement about money matters! Money and Marriage sessions are couple-only counseling sessions with the very specific agenda of helping couples to communicate more effectively about financial issues, and learn to manage their money as a team.
Parenting your children following a divorce or separation can be challenging and stressful. Co-parent facilitation is a process in which an impartial third party (facilitator) meets with the parents, sometimes individually, and sometimes together, to reduce and manage conflict, coordinate their parenting efforts, and focus on their mutual interest in the well-being of the children.
Sometimes my clients do not need to work with me on an ongoing basis, but require an assessment or evaluation, generally for a third party, like probation or the courts. If you need an assessment or evaluation, you should find out as much as you can about what the third party wants to know about you, or about your family functioning, and what type of report they will need. The scope (and cost) of your evaluation will depend on what the end product will be. I will most likely meet with each of you multiple times to gather information and complete my assessment, then write up a report to send to the third party.