Nurture & Heal Counseling Services
Family Therapy
As parents, we try to do it all; support and care for our kids all while showing up as that calm, collected and patient parent. However, what if that doesn't happen? and instead, your kids/teens' behavior escalates and the more you feel desperate/helpless in making things better for them. At the end of the day, all we want is the best for our kids but there are days when we feel so defeated and hopeless and think, "I just can't get through to my child. How can I do it? How can we get off this pattern of yelling and fighting in this house?"
In my early days of working with families being a field-based therapist working for Department of Mental Health-contracted agencies, my trainings prompted me to solely focus on the child and teach skills/strategies to improve their mood and behaviors. But what I noticed was while the behaviors de-escalated, they continued to recur and I had a hard time yielding lasting change.
Until I stumbled upon attachment theory and Sue Johnson's Emotionally-Focused therapy model.
Emotionally-focused therapy, is an evidence-based couples treatment modality (Sue later expanded it to working with families and individuals) that is rooted in attachment theory - which posits that in an anxious attachment, a child will often display behaviors such as crying, screaming, and clinging when a caregiver leaves. Even when the caregiver returns, the child struggles with being comforted. In an avoidant attachment, a child will show minimal distress and even avoid the caregiver when they return. However, when the child feels secure, the child will easily be comforted when upon the caregiver's return.
Essentially, when a child feels securely attached to a caregiver, they are able to navigate through their difficult emotions, pressure of school/friends, behavioral issues. This part about including the caregiver/parent was the missing piece to making lasting change. Since being trained, I use Emotionally-Focused Family therapy (EFFT) with kids, teens and families and it's helped tremendously with their relationships and the child's overall mental well-being.
What to expect using the EFFT modality? First, I work on building an alliance with the child/teen and the parents and in time, facilitate family sessions to work through the patterns that get them all entangled. I work with parent/caregiver blocks that inhibit that connection with their child and help the parents feel more confident and resilient with their parenting. In turn, this can help the child comfortably turn to them for support, which can improve and build a secure attachment. It also helps improve the child's anxiety, depression, behavioral issues among others and helps them feel more confident and emotionally resilient and ready to take on life's challenges.