Family Counseling In Maryland
Family Counseling Services In Maryland
Alicia Dorn, LCPC Is A Family Counselor In Maryland.
Alicia is accepting new patients, please call 443-977-4885 or email me at amdorn@aliciadorncounseling.com
Thanks for taking a few minutes to learn more about family counseling. If your family is stressed, you’re in the right place. Families often come to me when someone (or everyone) is experiencing anxiety. Kids present anxiety differently than adults, some are very vocal while others just stay in their room. Parents don’t always respond well to either scenario and this can lead to arguments, the silent treatment, or worse.
As a mom or dad, your kid’s behavior may have you deeply worried. How you respond to stress (yelling, hiding, nagging etc.) can leave you riddled with guilt and deeply worried about the future.
Dealing With Chronic Illness In Family Counseling
If your child has a chronic illness or you have one yourself, this added dimension can make your relationship even tougher. Your energy (or theirs) may be compromised and finding the will to keep going is hard when you’re sick, tired or angry.
Life with a chronic illness has many limitations and requires a new way of looking at the world. Within that are many emotions from grief to worry, anger, regret and fear. Many of these feelings come up at the same, inconvenient time and as a parent, you have to deal with everything. It’s hard and exhausting.
I know, I’ve been there. The life you’ve envisioned for your family hasn’t turned out the way you hoped. I want to say yet, but getting there and making peace with all that’s going on in your life requires that you do something different.
That’s what family counseling is for.
How Long Does Family Counseling Last
Can family counseling help if the whole family doesn’t attend?
So How Does Family Counseling Work?
Let’s talk about the basics. I’ll meet with you and your family on Zoom weekly for as long as you need support. After we unpack what’s really going on, each week’s meeting has a purpose to it. We review the skills worked on in the previous week so learning is experiential.
I want you to GET how to solve your challenges so this isn’t just talk therapy. Everyone shares in our sessions and we cover any issues that come up between our sessions.
As we build new skills, we use your regular life as the training ground so we test how well you learned, and can apply, new attitudes and advice to your life. This is how we test the waters so we know you’re growing and doing the work.
In this sense, I am like an accountability partner to the family. I’ll see when someone is dropping the ball or needing more support so we can address issues together.
Getting Started
Schedule a free 15-minute consultation to begin. We will discuss your goals and make a decision about working together. Once we have a plan, I’ll schedule your intake evaluation and send you a link to open your private therapy portal. All paperwork and counseling sessions are completed on the portal. All material shared with me either in writing or in person is confidential.
To get started, please call me at 443-977-4885 or email me at amdorn@aliciadorncounseling.com to either talk more about the process or explore working together.
How Family Counseling Can Reduce Your Family Stress & Anxiety
Family counseling reduces family stress and anxiety because you are actively addressing the problems instead of avoiding them. The elephant in the room is no longer a secret once you’re in family counseling, and it becomes the point of conversation. The counseling experience will allow the family to learn anxiety reduction skills so that you can practice and support one another outside of the sessions.
You’ll also learn helpful ways to communicate your needs with one another, so that you don’t have to worry about whether you’ll be supported or heard moving forward.
Family counseling allows everyone’s voice and concerns to be heard – parents, caregivers and teens. The experience helps family members learn more about how the problems impact everyone.
In counseling, I do a few things: first, I help identify the critical issues that are causing stress for everyone. Then, I support you all in figuring out how to address the elephant in the room that no one really feels comfortable talking about (i.e., your health condition, avoiding things out of fear etc.). By the time we’re finished, families report growing closer together because of a deeper sense of understanding that has grown during the therapeutic process. Clients share that they feel more supported and prepared to overcome challenges that show up in the future.
4 Important Things To Know Before Starting Family Counseling
1
This is not something to start just to “fix” someone in your family. Everyone has their own work they will do to work through the challenges together.
2
The biggest benefit for your kids is seeing you as a part of the process. Kids are more motivated when they experience their parent’s involvement in therapy.
3
There may be moments when you feel uncomfortable during and after the session (and that’s to be expected). But keep in mind that those moments happen less as you work through the issues together.
4
We will talk about what the family wants to accomplish from the beginning, and everyone’s needs will be included in those goals.