Living amidst tension and hostile antagonism is exhausting. It keeps us on high-alert, which puts us in survival mode to keep watch for the next threat. When in survival mode, the stakes feel like life-or-death. And, when everything feels do-or-die, there is very little room for error and learning. This pattern of behavior and emotional expression can limit wiggle room in relationships and create relationships where one or all people come to feel that they are walking a tight rope with the other or walking on eggshells around another. Families often get stuck in these patterns of survival mode, as attempts to disarm and regulate grow further out of reach and more estranged. At Root & Rise, Family therapy works to regulate the family system by processing the underlying pain, shame, disappointment, and resentment that often manifests in flights. 

When a family member survives a traumatic event, the whole family unit may feel the impact. This may present as shifts in measures of safety, emphasis on companionship, or even withdrawal due to shame and fear. As the family recovers from the wake of the trauma, each individual may experience its effects. At Root & Rise, family therapy processes the changes each individual experiences to bridge gaps in understanding diverse adjustment patterns and to allow family to unite families through recovery of hardship. 

Shame may drive people to conceal truths about themselves and their feelings. In families, dishonesty often presents as an effort to protect loved ones from painful truths. Dishonesty becomes the space between a rock and a hard place: lies and truths both hurt. Family therapy can provide a safe, contained space to hold even the most difficult stories, work through barriers of disclosure, and integrate them into the family system and family’s narrative.

Divorce and separation restructure the whole family unit and affect each member in a unique way. The grief and heartbreak, anger and resentment all permeate through the family and inevitably reshape individual relationships between partners, between children and parents, and between siblings. Family therapy at Root & Rise holds space for the challenges and transformations that present on a day-to-day basis as well as those which arise at holidays, anniversaries, celebrations, and milestones. Through family therapy, each individual family member can grow into the new-normal and find a new home within each other. 

Trouble between family members can grow between family members who feel indignified or shamed by another. Whether this manifests in vocalized or quiet conflicts, behavioral outbursts, or even emotional distancing, it can fracture the family system as a whole. At Root & Rise, family therapy tunes into each family member’s individual needs to encourage connection and understanding that embraces each person in the system.

Family therapy aims to rebalance each individual's role in the family to relieve family members from feeling overextended and ensure each person can stay within their developmental level and fulfill their responsibilities.

Whether sudden loss or expected loss due to a prolonged decline, the finality of death shocks the system. It may feel like time has stopped and an imagined future together has shattered. Bringing movement back into life can feel disingenuous to one’s own grief or even a betrayal to the one who has died. As grieving is both active and deeply personal, so it can feel lonely and grow heavier with time. At Root & Rise, family therapy creates space for each family member’s unique experience of loss to honor each person’s individual relationship with the person who has died in order to bring other family members into the vulnerable space of collective grief. Uniting together, families learn to join each other in life rather than isolate in loss. 

When resentment from unmet needs and anger from cumulative frustration go unattended, family members may resort to distancing themselves from each other. Where this staves off conflict, tension grows and may manifest as palpable uneasiness and anxiety. Working through the underpinnings of these dynamics relieves tension and anxiety for more comfortable cohabitation. And, beyond co-existence, resolving the resentment and anger disarms family members to see them authentically for a more vulnerable and honest understanding and genuine connections.