The Center for Mindful Families offers a variety of therapy experiences for children, adolescents, adults and families. Many times, a therapeutic plan includes a combination of the following services.
Individual Play Therapy
Play therapy is an evidenced-based intervention way in which children are able to gain mastery of their particular world, and is often the ideal clinical approach. Play therapy has been successful in addressing a variety of common difficulties including:
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Behavioral Difficulties
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Parent-Child Relationship Struggles including Attachment
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Issues related to Grief & Loss such as Death, Divorce or Incarceration
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Social and Emotional Challenges
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Trauma
Adolescent Therapy
It’s tough to be a teenager—walking the tightrope between childhood and adulthood involves balancing one’s place in the family, navigating social relationships, and managing self-esteem, a sexual identity, body image and academic pressure. Stressors such as a move, divorce, conflict, abuse or trauma make this balancing act even more difficult. As a result, many families with teenagers struggle to understand and communicate with one another, leading to more stress in the home environment.
It is helpful to use age-appropriate, creative and expressive methods to provide teens with an outlet to process their thoughts and feelings, their fears, hopes and dreams. Adolescent therapy can help teens who are facing a host of challenges and help them build greater self-understanding and feel more secure about their world.
LGBTQ Individuals
The LGBTQ community faces many unique challenges. The Center for Mindful Families provides a safe and welcoming space for individuals who identify as LGBTQ, providing therapy services that nurture and empower individuals and their families.
The experiences of LGBTQ individuals vary greatly, as do their abilities to cope with the stresses of everyday life. It is important that they do not internalize negative messages about sexual orientation and gender identity as they can create feelings of shame and unworthiness.
We work with clients who may need additional support when coming out, facing bullying at school or work, family disagreements and/or rejection, or inequality in the workplace, among others.
PostPartum Depression
Postpartum depression is a disorder that can affect women following childbirth. In the first days and weeks after childbirth, a new mother goes through a variety of emotions. She may feel many wonderful feelings including awe, joy and bliss. But she may also experience difficult feelings including sadness and hopelessness. Around one in seven women will experience Postpartum Depression, struggling with levels of sadness, anxiety and exhaustion that may be extreme.
Postpartum depression can be long-lasting and affect a woman’s ability to get through her daily routine but it can also affect her ability to care for her baby and bond with her baby. Other symptoms include:
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Feeling down or depressed for most of the day for several weeks or more
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Feeling distant and withdrawn from family and friends
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A loss of interest in activities (including sex)
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Changes in eating and sleeping habits
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Feeling tired most of the day
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Feeling angry or irritable
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Having feelings of anxiety, worry, panic attacks or racing thoughts
Family Therapy
An individual’s social-emotional difficulties can both develop and be maintained in the context of the family. For this reason, family therapy focuses on exploring the interactions that occur between family members and how these interactions may be reinforcing problematic beliefs, feelings, and behaviors. The Center for Mindful Families provides a space where every family member has a voice, is willing to listen, and is fully supported in their journey to overall wellness.
Some of the families we work with include:
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Adoptive families
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Foster families
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LGBTQ families
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Single-parent families
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Caregiver (grandparents) families
“Almost all creativity involves purposeful play.”
--Abraham Maslow