Family Therapy
Family Problems? We Can Help.
Is your family embroiled in conflict? Confronted with a crisis? Have you lost a meaningful connection with each other? We can help you recover the family you love and create the family you long for.
How Can We Help With:
Parenting Challenges
Parenting is a challenge no matter your child’s disposition, general obedience or stage of life. Certain children come to a family with the added challenges of psychological, neurological, and behavioral issues. Other challenges may come with personality differences between parent and child, differences in values between parents, and even challenges within a community. Whether you need general parenting tips, or more sophisticated ways to be a “therapeutic parent,” the Cherry Hill counselors are here to support you. Here are a number of theories and interventions we commonly use at Cherry Hill Counseling to assist parents:
Theoretical Approaches
- Behavior Therapy
- Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
- Family Systems Therapy
- Strategic Therapy
- Attachment Theory
- Co-parenting
- Emotion Focused Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Transactional Analysis
- Gestalt Therapy
- Interpersonal Therapy
Interventions
- Parent-child communication skills
- Improving dialogue between children and parents
- Identifying family values
- Parent management training
- Behavior plans uniquely designed for your family
- Setting limits while remaining emotionally aligned with your child
- Helping children and adolescents feel the burden of responsibility for their actions
- Leveraging natural consequences
- Coordination with treatment teams
- Rehearsal and role-playing
Communication Problems
Communication problems can arise in any family whether or not other mental health issues are present. Effective communication helps to alleviate all sorts of stressful issues for the whole family or between specific family members. If communication is a problem in your family, the therapists at Cherry Hill can help. Here are some theories and interventions we use to understand familial communication problems:
Theoretical Approaches
- Family Systems Therapy
- Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
- Emotion Focused Therapy
- Interpersonal Therapy
- Strategic Therapy
- Transactional Analysis
- Behavior Therapy
- Gestalt Therapy
Interventions
- Communication skills training
- Listening skills
- Parent management training
- Socratic questions
- Rehearsal and role-playing
- Identifying family values
Separation and Divorce
In the fast moving, high stress of modern life, marriages often slide into distress, conflict and anger. Partners experience each other as the blame and allow their vows to first love to fade. Family discord, separation, and divorce follow, leaving husbands, wives and children wounded, angry and scared. A core part of Cherry Hill’s mission is standing in the gap with families to bring healthier communication, understanding, caring and forgiveness. We want to help marriages heal and thrive. Here are a few theoretical approaches and interventions we use to tackle separation and divorce at Cherry Hill:t.
Theoretical Approaches
- Emotional Focused Therapy
- Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
- Imago Therapy Techniques of exploring sources of anger
- Re-Decision Therapy
- Grieving and Loss Therapy
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Interventions
- Conflict Resolution
- Fair fighting rules
- Reverse role-playing
- Understanding each others’ childhood learned coping strategy
- Empathy training
- Love languages
- Re-romancing strategies
- Guilt resolution
- Vision questing for a new life or an improved family
Family Crises
Has a member of your family fallen ill? Did someone recently lose their job or home? The multitude of crises that can arise within a family is vast. Whether your family crises are common or complicated, Cherry Hill can help sort through the fear, stress, confusion, conflict and anger surrounding them. Here are some theories and interventions we use at Cherry Hill to tackle family crises:
Theoretical Approaches
- Theoretical approaches
- Family systems Therapy
- Interpersonal Therapy
- Emotion focused Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
- Behavior Therapy
- Grief Counseling
Interventions
- Interventions
- Stress management
- Developing coping skills
- Reinforcing the family support system
- Family roles assessment
- Improving dialogue between children and parents
- Creating a family crisis plan
- Identifying social supports
- Anxiety management skills
Blending Families
Though children are resilient, changes to the status quo can often cause problems. When the change is welcoming a ‘stranger’ into the family in the instance of blending families, the problems between families can become extensive. We can help your children navigate the confusing emotions that crop up when blending families, including feelings of self-deprecation, loneliness, loss, worry, confusion, and mistrust. Here are a few theories and interventions we use to tackle blending families:
Theoretical Approaches
- Theoretical approaches
- Family systems Therapy
- Interpersonal Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Behavior Therapy
- Emotion-Focused Therapy
- Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
Interventions
- Family roles assessment
- Roles in parental discipline
- Reinforcing the family support system
- Improving dialogue between families
- Education on the challenges of blending families
- Anticipating family problems prior to blending families
Caring for Parents or Extended Family
As each generation lives longer, it is becoming more common for children to care for their aging parents. In addition, due to the difficult economic times we have been experiencing, it is often financially difficult for children to launch or necessary for family members to share resources or provide care. This care can be in the form of emotional support, navigating medical decisions, monitoring finances, assisting in major life and death transitions, providing housing or providing for daily needs. The demands can be intense with little time or energy for the care-taker to consider his/her own needs. In addition, the emotional connection makes it difficult to have clear vision at times. The therapists at Cherry Hill can provide the outside perspective needed to find balance. Many have personal experience as care-givers and understand the emotional struggles involved in making decisions or setting limits. We can provide the support needed to help you care for your family as well as yourself.
Theoretical Approaches
- Person-centered
- Cognitive Therapy
- Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
- Emotion-Focused Therapy
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
- Mindfulness
- Group Therapy
- Existential Therapy
Interventions
- Relaxation (controlled breathing, progressive relaxation, imagery)
- Iedntifying and modifying distorted thinking
- Identifying values
- Assertiveness training
- Interpersonal boundary setting
- Problem-solving
- Stress management education and training
- Family sessions
- Collaboration with treatment team (nurses, psychiatrist, physician)
Recent Adoption
Families who have been formed by adoption or guardianship often struggle to establish a healthy parent/child bond. The child’s past experiences of neglect, trauma, and/or significant breaks in their attachment to caregivers at a young age has a negative impact on the child’s ability to connect with others. Parent often give up on trying to connect, especially when the child exhibits many negative behaviors such as lying, stealing, aggression, defiance, and lack of eye contact. At Cherry Hill, we utilize the following theories and interventions to address these families:
Theoretical Approaches
- Attachment Theories
- Developmental Psychology
- Interpersonal Neurobiology
- Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy
Interventions
- Emotional Regulation Skills
- Family Therapy (using Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy model)
- Parent Education and Support
- Writing child’s autobiography
What Your Family Can Expect In Your Session
- A safe space for family members to communicate with each other
- The opportunity to process family conflicts with a therapist who maintains an impartial perspective.
- Defined problems and identified solutions for your family.
- Counselors that will work as a team for larger families and more challenging family situations.
Groups We Offer
We are taking suggestions for group topics at this time. Please let your therapist know if you’d like to participate in a group therapy session or workshop about a specific focus area.
Blog Articles
Helpful Links
- Brendan Bell & Associates
- Kids Health
- Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS)
- Safe Families
- Academy for Eating Disorders
- Divorce 360
- Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS)
- Psychcentral
- Psychology Today
- PsyBlog
- American Psychological Association
- National Institute of Mental Health
- National Alliance on Mental Illness
- Mayo Clinic
- Association for Behavioral Analysis
- Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies
- Anxiety Disorders Association of America
- Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress
- Gateway to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Information
- Obsessive Compulsive Foundation
- Social Service Agency of Lake County