Integrative Child and Family Services
We understand from experience that when children, adolescents, parents, and families are facing difficulty, that multiple lenses must be used to understand and address the problem. After careful consultation with you, we suggest and implement the strategy or strategies we think would be most effective, most commonly integrating a combination of cognitive, behavioral, systemic, educational, and/or neurobiological treatments.
Our Approach
We Provide Care For These Challenges
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Promoting secure attachment with our children is an important consideration for any parent. We have expertise about navigating this in the unique circumstance of adoption or foster care.
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Being able to sense danger is an essential part of being able to keep ourselves safe. However, unhelpful patterns can form around fears that cause secondary problems in our lives.
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Sometimes the only way we know how to communicate that something is wrong is by acting out. When behavioral concerns arise, it is essential to have curiosity about why and what underlying issue might be presenting itself through the unwanted or problematic behavior.
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Divorce and remarriage affect not only the family system as a whole, but each member of the family individually. Understanding how to support each family member through the transitions and promote the health of the new system are integral parts of navigating these new life circumstances.
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Communication bridges areas of disconnect and difference we have with one another, whether a spouse, child, sibling, or parent. Learning how to communicate what we are feeling in an effective way with those we love improves our lives and relationships.
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Sometimes, in spite of the best efforts of parents, children and teens find themselves arrested in development. This can be frustrating and anxiety provoking. Having outside help to understand and address the problem can help families and family members get back on track and growing.
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Depression can be many things and show itself in many ways. Irritability, emotional withdrawal, tiredness, and apathy are all signs of depression. Addressing depression involves careful consideration of internal and external causes.
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Divorce and separation are transitions that affect every member of the family. Therapists have expertise in how to support family members, and their different developmental levels, through these transitions in a way that mitigates secondary consequences.
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Children and teens understand and process loss in the best way they can. Sometimes losses leave us at an impasse or the process of grieving is interrupted. Figuring out how to respond to losses in a supportive way allows us to heal to the best of our ability and find new ways of connecting to life.
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Neurodivergence can leave the neurodivergent person, or the parent of a neurodivergent person, at a loss about how to navigate a neurotypical world. Evaluating neurodivergence with neurotypical standards is a recipe for shame and disappointment. Having words for the unique experience of the neurodivergent person and providing support specific to that unique position is the key to improving life-long quality of life.
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The stresses of parenthood are paramount. Figuring out how to balance safety, love, engagement, and structure—and get to school on time—is no small task. Sometimes when navigating the challenges of parenthood, we find ourselves at a loss for how to proceed. We can tell—or someone tells us—our best efforts aren’t working. Seeking help at moments like this can make way for new possibilities for parents and children, alike.
Clinical Perspectives We Find Important
Meaning-making
Play is a form of communication, and many times, the complex thoughts and feelings that your child can’t put into words can be symbolized, expressed, and worked on through play. Our therapists are trained to tune into the important themes your child is expressing or avoiding in their play. These can include things like control, fear, and safety; aggression; power; good and bad; exploration and mastery; separation and closeness. As we attend to any “sticky” areas with your child, we help them make or re-make meaning about themselves, their families, and the world in a way that promotes growth and healing.
Social-emotional Development
Children are always growing and changing on us! Even within a single day (or hour), we may see them “show up” at very different levels of development. Some of the biggest family conflicts can come from a mismatch between parental expectations and your child’s current developmental capacity. Play therapists at MHT are constantly tracking your child’s developmental level, noting the contexts that bring out their highest and lowest levels of functioning. We teach parents and children to become mindfully aware of these contexts and what tools to use to bring out the best in each of us.
Attachment
The nature of children’s relationships with their caregivers shapes their experience of every aspect of their lives. We are passionate about supporting healthy relationships between you and your child. Where the attachment relationship is already strong, we will help you leverage your relationship with your child to conquer the challenges they are facing. Where the attachment relationship is damaged or weak, we will walk with you, the caregiver, to do the important behind the scenes work so that a new and fulfilling way of relating can emerge.
Types of Care We Offer
Play Therapy
When children play, they reveal what they’re struggling with and trying to master. In play therapy, a therapist with specialization in child development and behavior will engage in play with your child, and learn through participation and observation about what these struggles might be. learning about what they’re struggling with. Treatment involves both parental consultation, where these observations and strategies for improvement are shared with parents, and strategic play therapy, where children are given space to work through difficulty.
Family Therapy
While therapy with children and adolescents often involves consultation with parents, family therapy approaches the family directly as an interconnected system. Family therapy often involves a consideration about whether a family member’s symptoms or distress is a reflection of the way the family is functioning as a whole. In this kind of treatment, family members get together at the same time and a therapist helps the family discuss what’s happening and understand the way they are interacting with one another more clarity.
Parenting
When parents seek therapy, it is often because they know they are struggling with some aspect of managing care for their child or children and are bravely seeking support for those challenges. In an environment of safety and support, we will listen to your concerns and help you navigate the challenges by seeing what’s possible to adjust or understand with more depth. While there’s no manual for how to be a good parent, we are excited to support you with careful understanding and recommendations that help you feel unstuck.
Therapy for Adolescents
Therapy for adolescents involves careful consideration of the adolescent’s social-emotional development and presenting concerns. Teens face new challenges of responsibility in school, social pressure, and maturing self-awareness. In our work with teens, we remain conscious of the kinds of challenges that teens face with their growing independence.
Psychiatric Consultation and Care
In the course of treating you or your loved one, we might form the opinion that the integration of psychiatric intervention or medications would help improve the current situation. When this is the case, we will share our observations and rationale with you and let you and your family make the decision about whether to explore medication as a part of treatment. If you express interest, we have psychiatrists to refer you to who we trust to understand, diagnose, and treat conditions that benefit from medication.
Neuropsychological Testing
In the course of treating children and adolescents, we might start to form certain curiosities about the brain and mind of the person we’re working with. Without putting you under a microscope, we will look for indications that you or your loved one might have differences with respect to learning, attention, or social-emotional functioning. Neuropsychological testing allows us to understand these differences with great complexity, revealing an understanding of you or your loved one’s mind and brain that can open the door to deeper acceptance and strategies for greater success in school, relationships, and beyond.
School-based Services
We provide school-based services when we think that your child would benefit from interventions that take place at school. Whether this is conducting therapy in the middle of a school day because school is the place where your child exhibits the most distress or symptoms, or making observations about how your child is interacting with their peers or teachers. We are also happy to support the integration of therapy with us into your child’s school, whether that’s speaking with your child’s school about the results of neuropsychological testing or our observations about their stressors and challenges. In school-based services, we aim to extend the therapeutic space to include your child’s school environment.
