Family Dynamics
Every client you work with will have a slightly different idea of what it means to exist within a family. And the way those families are formed, whether by marriage, divorce, genetics, or choice, will be as varied as your clients themselves. Articles in this category explore how the relational patterns we're born into ultimately shape our view of, and experiences with, the world and ourselves. These articles follow clients through DNA surprises, family transitions, conflicted sibling ties, and the quiet rituals that hold familial relationships together. Throughout, you'll find stories and insights into therapy's role in helping real families that have lived, clashed, and grown together across the lifespan.
When DNA Testing Rewrites Your Story
Processing Unexpected Genetic Discoveries in Therapy
A young child’s bedroom is a place for magic and enchantment. Read more
Sorting through his mother’s personal files in the wake of her dementia, a son discovers more than he expected. Read more
Marianne Walters didn't invent a brilliant new therapeutic paradigm, publish a large and magisterial body of research, or establish her own unique school of... Read more
Anxiety is a demanding beast, with a long list of conditions that must be met to keep it at bay. It forces anxious children and their families to banish... Read more
In an encyclopedic new book, Andrew Solomon explores how parents and children forge emotional bonds with one another in the presence of sometimes vast inborn... Read more
A man entering his sixties discovers some peculiar markers that signal a retreat from old oppositional habits. Read more
Exploring the complex fabric of an often poorly understood family bond that shapes us, in one way or another, throughout our lives. Read more
A determined patient searches for therapeutic insight from an unlikely source. Read more
* Is Therapy Harmful? * The Unintended Consequences of Black-Labeling Antidepressants * A Depression Vaccine * Unexpected Resilience Among Adolescents ... Read more
Facing the challenge of working with a dissembling adolescent in a blended family means changing the "official story" of the problem. Read more
A session with a homeless client recalls a long-ago lesson about accomplishing an impossible task. Read more
A woman who wants to learn a new way to be with her mother teaches her therapist what it means to step out of his own comfort zone. Read more
A man who grew up rescuing the women around him learns that there's no saving someone from sorrow. Sometimes the best we can do—all we can do—is offer a... Read more
The Family Dialogue Project grew out of my attempt to help therapists, abuse survivors, and their families caught in the meshes of terrible conflicts from... Read more
Everyone's reconciliation story is different, but everyone can reconcile in one of four ways. Read more
Stepfamilies enact unique morality plays with plots involving, betrayal, heroic commitment and Solomon-like discernment. They Illuminate like no other family... Read more
As today's hyperkinetic families struggle to create the semblance of a shared life out of the frantic and conflicting schedules of their members, the... Read more
"Mom, I think it's time to really forgive you, and maybe even me. But I'm still mad. I just don't know how to let go of it. Believe it or not, I've been trying... Read more
From the September/October 1994 IN THE PHOTOGRAPH OF MY maternal grandfather, Louie, that I remember most clearly, he is around 50, his bald head and... Read more
Not surprisingly, almost nothing makes children, including adolescents, feel as insecure and adrift as parents who also feel insecure and adrift, tossed by... Read more
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