FAMILY THERAPY IN PORTLAND
Our Approach to Family Therapy
- There are a multitude of reasons that bring youth and parents to seek family therapy support
- Our approach helps youth and families meet and work together from a non-pathologizing, strengths-based, growth-oriented, and relationship-focused model of family therapy.
- As family therapists, our therapeutic techniques foster strengths, virtues, goal-setting, and positive emotional well-being of all family members.
- In working with the family system, we aim to help families move beyond their unique challenges to fortify the family with core skills and qualities that consistently fuel greater family harmony.
- Our approach is informed by our beliefs about the active ingredients that promote and sustain optimal family life. We believe our families are healthiest when they:
- show concern and interest for each other;
- have good feelings for each other;
- are happy with their association with each other, and they enjoy each other’s company;
- communicate in respectful ways and they resolve disagreements and conflicts peacefully so that there is a bonding and growth experience instead of frustration and anger as the result;
- are willing to support each other in times of hardship or crisis;
- work to understand the other people in the family and work to be understood by others;
- they express appreciation for the people in the family for what they are, rather than what they would like them to be;
- they look for the good things in one another and recognize and point out one another’s strengths while appreciating the individual differences (and similarities) of each family member.

