Family Therapy

Some difficulties are best addressed with the family present. Sessions focus on the patterns that keep a problem going — how meals are handled, how anxiety gets accommodated, how a disagreement escalates — and on giving each person something specific to do differently.

For eating disorders in children and adolescents, we use Family Based Treatment (FBT), which puts parents in charge of renourishment in the early phase and returns independence to the young person in steps as recovery holds. For anxious children, Supportive Parenting of Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE) works primarily with the parents: by changing how the family responds to anxiety, the child's world opens back up — and it can help even when the child is unwilling to attend therapy.

Meetings may include the young person or be parent-only, depending on what the work needs that week. Both are ordinary parts of treatment, not a sign that something has gone wrong.