Family Therapy

At Clear Mind, we help families actually like being a family again. 

Families are complicated — and that’s not a flaw, it’s just the truth. Even the most loving families can find themselves stuck in the same arguments, talking past each other, or quietly drifting apart. Sometimes a crisis brings things to a head: a divorce, a teenager pulling away, a loss, a diagnosis, a secret that finally came out. Other times there’s no single event — just a slow accumulation of distance, hurt feelings, or patterns that nobody chose but everyone keeps repeating.

Family therapy isn’t about deciding who’s right or pointing fingers. It’s about understanding the whole picture — and helping everyone in it feel more connected, heard, and equipped to move forward.

How We Work

We start from the belief that people don’t exist in isolation. The relationships we’re born into shape how we see ourselves, handle conflict, and give and receive love — and when something isn’t working, it’s rarely just one person’s fault. What looks like one person’s problem is often a signal that the whole family system is under stress. Shifting from blame to curiosity is often where things begin to change.

In session, we draw on Structural Family Therapy to look at the roles and organization that have quietly taken shape in your family — who carries the weight, where boundaries have become too rigid or too loose, and whether the dynamic that developed over time is still actually working for everyone in it. Small shifts in how a family is structured can create surprisingly large changes in daily life.

We pay close attention to the emotions underneath surface behavior, using Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) — rooted in decades of attachment research — to help family members understand what’s really driving their reactions. When a teenager shuts down or a parent overreacts, there’s almost always an unmet need underneath. Creating the safety to surface those deeper layers helps families respond to each other with more empathy and less reactivity. Tools from the Gottman Method support this work, offering concrete ways to rebuild trust, repair after conflict, and strengthen the emotional foundation that holds a family together.

We also explore the stories families carry about themselves — “we don’t talk about feelings” or “he’s always been the difficult one” — and through a Narrative Therapy lens, we gently question whether those stories are true, useful, or simply inherited. Often these narratives have been passed down through generations, and Bowenian Family Therapy helps us trace those multigenerational patterns — not to assign blame, but to understand where they came from and make a conscious choice about whether to keep carrying them.

When trauma is part of the picture, it informs everything. Trauma rarely stays with just one person; its ripple effects move through the whole household, shaping how people communicate, connect, and protect themselves. A trauma-informed approach is woven throughout our work, ensuring that the pace and process of therapy always prioritizes safety — and that healing, when it happens, reaches the whole family.

Progress isn’t always linear. Some sessions will feel connecting and productive; others might stir things up before they settle. That’s a normal part of the process — and it’s navigable.

Who This Is For

Family therapy is for any family configuration — nuclear, blended, multigenerational, chosen. You don’t need to be in crisis to come in. Many families seek support not because something has gone terribly wrong, but because they want something better than what they currently have. That’s more than enough reason to start.

Reaching out for a consultation is a low-stakes first step — a chance to ask questions, share what’s going on, and see if it feels like a good fit.