If you’re looking for ‘family counseling des moines,’ Real Connections Counseling therapists can guide you through the process of healing issues that hurt and hinder your family. Through family counseling, we’ll seek connection, love, and understanding.
Confusing, Painful, or Hurtful Family Relationships The way my family relates can be so confusing sometimes!
“My teenager is out of control!”
“We fight all the time.”
“Our family has just gone through a terrible tragedy.”
“The way my family relates can be so confusing sometimes!”
Family counseling can be a rewarding, and can change each one of you for the better. We can help strengthen family relationships, improve parenting skills, build consistency and communication, develop and implement rules, routines, behavior charts or family contracts, decrease sibling rivalry, increase positive affection, gain insight into child and adolescent development, help you all cope with divorce, learn to co-parent after divorce, weave a new future in blended and step families, and allow grandparents to spend time with grandchildren.
How many times has a family conflict caused a permanent rift in a family? There are so many movies and books and documentaries that tell stories of revenge and distrust and broken family relationships. And how many times do those stories begin with a simple, but significant, conflict or miscommunication? Let us help you resolve those issues before they become big, hurtful and permanent.
Do I need family counseling? How can family counseling help?
Family counseling can be the primary therapy choice for you, to make positive and long-lasting changes for your family. We know that families hurt, and struggle through fighting, and misunderstanding. We hurt with you, and experience the heartbreak that many of you know in your families. We’ve been with you in grief and loss, and have seen you through. Family counseling matters because you’ll have one or both of us focused solely on moving into, through, and past what’s happening to you. There’s hope to be better, and your family counselor(s) want nothing less for you.
You can also include family therapy as a wellness option, not unlike getting in shape, or practicing a skill like piano, or guitar. We’ll get to have some fun with you as you prepare to improve, and get better. Sometimes there’s a mission or goal you all want to achieve together, and your family counselor can help you get there. Families can also bring in the family periodically as part of your personal, couples, or marriage counseling work. For instance, family counselors can teach you how to play with your children!
Next, we believe you’ll find that family counseling is an excellent resource when blending two families together. Family counseling helps to form healthy communication, and build new traditions together.
And last, if you are looking at a new family transition, such as a new baby, adoption, foster care, moving towards empty-nest, or new career, meeting with a family therapist can help to make that transition smoother, peaceful, and more wonderful. We have tools and skills to help you work through all of it together.
How do family counseling sessions work?
We gather information from all of the family members that are going to participate and consider the various concerns of those in the family. We incorporate discussions, conflict resolution, play therapy, family tasks, homework and other processes to help you learn from each other, grow together and learn healthy ways to resolve conflict and build family memories.
How is a support group different from family counseling?
A support group includes people that have similar experiences and can provide support, insight, ideas and suggestions for you to learn from – or for you to share with them. It is a place to share struggles and process ways to make things better. In that way, family therapy is similar! We encourage you to share your issues and concerns in a safe environment and process them together, but in family therapy, you are actually working directly with your close relationships to become healthy together.
How long are your family therapy sessions? How much does family counseling cost?
Family sessions are usually longer than our standard sessions, due to the number of people in the room and the information that needs to be processed and handled, so you will want to plan for 60-70 minutes for each of the sessions. The cost for family counseling is $95 per session. If the session is decided to be longer per a discussion with your therapist, the cost will be discussed with you at that time.
What are the benefits of family counseling?
If you can grow together as your children grow up, developing healthy and solid friendships and life-long relationships as a whole family, would that be “worth it” to you? The benefits of a safe place to processes unhealthy behaviors, frustrating reactions, poor skills to change them to good responses is hard to overstate. Transitions can lead to unintentional results, and then harboring ill-will or just resentments can build into much more than expected. Family counseling can build resiliency for each of the family members as well as the family as a whole. Experiencing life TOGETHER and processing the changes as a family allows for healthy transitions.