Individual, Group and Family Therapy

Individual Therapy

How do I know if I need psychotherapy?

If you answer 'yes' to any of the following questions, you could well benefit from therapy:

a. Have you been feeling down or depressed most of the time for two weeks?

b. Does your anxiety keep you from living a full, active and happy life?

c. Are you chronically dissatisfied with your career, relationships or body?

d. Does your career or your personal relationships suffer due to your own lack of self-esteem?

e. Does your spouse, child, parents, or boss consistently make you feel bad about yourself?

f. Do you suffer from mood swings which interfere with your relationships or career?

g. Do you tend to unintentionally alienate others who are important to you?

h. Do you feel like a victim of circumstance, without hope of overcoming your situation?

Group Therapy

Dr. Parks runs monthly creative expression groups at her office in Carrboro. (See Creativity Workshops for a more thorough description of these groups.) She also runs occasional time limited groups that address specific issues such as coping with

Family Therapy

Q: What is family therapy?

A. Family therapy involves two or more members of a family. Often, the entire family will come in to the therapist's office together to discuss issues that cause tension or conflict between family members.

Q. Are their several schools of family therapy?

A. Yes, several. However, many are closely related. I have been trained in general systems theory as well as interactional family therapy. When I see families, I generally do not see them as a whole every single time. I usually work with one member of the family and see the whole family on an as needed basis when issues arise that demand family cooperation.

Q. What are the benefits of attending therapy as a family?

A. The most obvious benefit is that everyone in the family gets their needs heard and learns to more effectively interact with the other members. A less obvious benefit is that the 'identified patient' learns to better understand the family system and the manner in which their problems are closely connected with the way this system operates. A typical challenge for the identified patient is to gradually change his/her role in the system. The challenge for the parents and siblings is to gracefully allow for this change by learning to function in a healthier manner themselves.

Q. What kinds of problems are best treated by seeing the family together?

A. Some problems that can be effectively treated using family therapy are: discipline problems in children, attention problems in multiple family members, and depression or anxiety that is exacerbated by dysfunctional family dynamics .

Q. What if my child or spouse is unwilling to participate?

A. Having a spouse who does not want to participate clearly does not bode well for using family therapy as an approach. In this case, I would need to work with the child and only those family members who are willing to make a commitment to attend sessions. I would need to better understand the spouse's unwillingness to participate in order to decide whether to use this approach at all. If the child is unwilling to participate, then family therapy is clearly NOT an option.

Q. Would you ever use family therapy when one of the parents is the identified patient?

A. Probably not, particularly if there are young children in the family. It is important for children to understand they are not in therapy to 'fix' a parent. I might see a patient's children occasionally, but only in order to discuss difficulties that they are having themselves and, of course, only with my patient's consent.

There are many excellent books and articles on the benefits of this very powerful form of treatment. One of the most important reasons to try this approach to treatment is that it takes the stigma off of the identified patient and helps her/him to see that some of their issues are related to broader family dynamics that can be altered over time. Whether or not to involve the family in therapy is an issue that we would need to discuss in person before a commitment to use this approach is made.