Family Therapy
by Friedman Family Therapy
Jeff
Wendy
We’re a mother and son therapy team with Ivy League training and lived experience with family conflict, blended families and understand both the child and the parent point of view.
Is your family facing a crisis?
Are you trying to repair a relationship that has become strained or even estranged?
Are you struggling with a child’s behavior, substance use, blended family dynamics, or a major transition?
When one person is struggling, the conflict often spreads. Parents argue about what to do, siblings get pulled in, and conversations that should solve problems turn into the same argument again.
We don’t believe one person is the problem. We look at the patterns between family members, including how conflict starts, how each person responds, and what keeps the cycle going.
Families Come To Us
If your family is going through a difficult time, you may recognize some of these:
Estrangement
Family conflict
Child behavioral problems
Unhealthy coping + substances
Blending families
Parenting disagreements
Family transitions
Strained relationships
Bereavement
How Family Therapy With Us Works
We start by hearing each person’s side. We start by hearing each person's perspective, then identify the patterns that keep the conflict going and decide what each person can do differently.
We're not interested in fixing one person. We look at the family system and the patterns between people. From there, we choose the approaches that fit the problem we're working on and use them to practice different ways of communicating, responding, and solving conflict.
Therapy is one hour a week, so we use workbooks, videos, articles, and other resources to help you continue the work between sessions
Our Approach
-
Helps us see how each person's behavior affects the others, so we can interrupt cycles of blame, withdrawal, conflict, and escalation.
-
Focuses on what the family can change now and identifies specific behaviors that are already working.
-
Helps families examine the beliefs and stories they have developed about one another so they can separate the person from the problem and respond differently.
-
Helps family members speak more directly about what they need, experience, and feel so difficult conversations become more honest and productive.
-
Helps partners and family members understand the patterns behind their reactions and practice responding to each other with greater understanding.
We want each session to give your family something you can use at home, whether that's a communication exercise, a parenting strategy, or a way to interrupt a familiar conflict pattern.
Your Family Doesn't Have To Live In Conflict
You may be blaming yourself, blaming each other, or having the same argument without agreeing on what needs to change. Family conflict can become a repeating cycle. Therapy helps you identify the cycle and practice different ways of responding to each other.
After Family Therapy With Us
Families report:
Fewer repeated arguments
Clearer parenting decisions
Better communication
Less blaming
Stronger parent-child relationships
More productive conflict
Clearer family boundaries
Our goal is not to make every family member agree. It's to help your family recognize the patterns behind your conflict and respond differently when the same problems come up again.
“Family therapy can help you move through a hard season without staying stuck in the same patterns.”
About Friedman Family Therapy
We’re a mother and son therapy team, we bring two different family perspectives while keeping our focus on the family as a whole.
Wendy grew up in a stepfamily and knows firsthand how complicated it can be to build new family roles and relationships. Jeff’s doctoral research focused on resilience in individuals with Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs.
Our academic training includes Columbia, Yale, Thomas Jefferson UniversityNova Southeastern University. We combine that training with our own family experiences to help families reduce conflict, strengthen relationships, and handle difficult transitions.
Please note — you will work with one of us individually, not both therapists simultaneously.
Our Family Therapists
Availability: We provide in-person therapy in Coral Gables, Hallandale and virtual therapy via telehealth for clients across Florida.
3 Steps To Get Started
-
Reach out and tell us what is happening in your family and what you want to change.
-
We’ll talk through your concerns, answer questions, and see whether we’re the right fit for your family.
-
We’ll hear each person’s perspective and begin identifying the patterns that are getting in the way.