Therapy for Adult Children & Parents
Adult Family Therapy in Dallas, TX & Philadelphia, PA
Family therapy for adult children and parents
The longest phase of parenting is parenting adult children. But most family therapy is geared to parents of young kids. Why is that?
One of my specialties is working with adult children and their parents to work through things the common issues that plague them.
For some families, it’s working through those old hurts that never got resolved during childhood. For others, it’s parents and children that can’t break out of the cycle of familiar arguments.
The families I work with want to co-exist peacefully and feel close, though their definitions of closeness may differ. I help parents and adult children bridge the gap.
I help parents and their adult children build a relationship that actually works for them.
The parents and adult children I work with address things like:
Ongoing boundary issues between parents and children
Disagreements about how each lives their lives
Building connection that feels good for all adults involved
Working through old hurts from the adult child’s childhood
Undoing patterns of disagreement that hurt everybody
Addressing enmeshment, disengagement, and other structural family issues
Read Sarah’s articles on therapy in Psychology Today:
Dad has a temper. Everybody in the family knows that to keep a calm house; nobody can upset Dad. Mom frequently reminds the kids not to upset their father and hides potential sources of stress from him like a bad report card, a car dent, or a financial setback. The kids know how to read his moods from little details—like the pitch of his voice or how loudly the front door closes. When they sense their father’s stress increasing, the kids walk on eggshells, taking up as little space as possible.