Family Counseling Because There's No Such Thing as a Perfect Family

If the issues are pertaining to all of the family and the family dynamic is chaotic and not connective, then yes. Your practitioner would bring everyone to assess the dynamics and discover what dyads needed some specific attention for the first session. After that we might break up and do some dyad work, like mom and son, or dad and daughter. If the problem seems to be rooted in the parents relationship, we might make a referral for couple's counseling, or we might just work with the couple. If the problem is between siblings, depending on their age (if they are under 13 we would likely have a parent with them) or we might just pull out a brother and sister dyad and work with them for a few sessions. Usually the problems can be observed between two family members. We pull out those dyads, work with them to some resolution of their negative dance and put everyone back together again to continue to assess where the dyadic issues stick out. Then at the end we would bring the whole family back together to talk about the changes in their family dynamics.

Yes! We find that working with teenagers alone rarely is fruitful, being seen with their family system is much more productive in general. From a systemic perspective, your teenager is part of a bigger whole and we need to see the dynamics at play and help the family together realize where things go wrong and parents to understand the blocks to tuning in with their child, what the impact they are having on each other, and begin to soften the distress with validation of everyone's perspective and then working toward listening and hearing each other and discovering the teenager's needs that aren't being met. So, yes, please bring your teenager in! We might start with just the parents giving us their side of the story, and then having an individual session with the teenager and then back together again.  

That depends. If you don't feel there are any blocks or impediments to your relationship with your daughter or your wife and it seems mostly focused around your wife and teen, then you may not need to attend. On the other hand, sometimes spouses have a very helpful view of what is happening, so it could be important to have the whole system come in a time or two with your wife and daughter. It would be something you determined with your provider. 

We absolutely work with adult children and parents! Sometimes this work is most rewarding and the richest kind of family therapy there is; to make amends, to repair hurts, and to find a new way together to go forward. We can do dyad work, mom and daughter, father and son, and any combination that would be helpful. You would want to talk to your provider to decide the best approach for your family system.