The way we show up in the world is often informed by our family dynamics. There are times when it is helpful to have a guiding hand to learn to better communicate with and support each other. That is where a family counsellor may be helpful. At Positive Mind Wellness, we offer solutions to help families navigate conflict resolution, co-parenting, grief, separation, trauma, and other challenging situations. Our process begins with an initial discovery consultation with a family group of three or more at our Newmarket clinic. During the consultation, we get an idea of the challenges you’re facing and chart a way forward.

What is Family Therapy?

Family therapy is a form of psychotherapy that involves two or more family members learning to better understand and communicate with each other. The individuals don’t need to be from the same family or even related at all.

No matter who the participants are, the goal of family therapy is to address counterproductive behaviours, improve conflict resolution, and navigate challenging seasons. This will ultimately help them support each other and move together in unity.

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Who Can Benefit from Family Therapy?

When your family’s disconnected, even simple conversations can be a struggle. Family therapy addresses problems of all types and magnitudes, including:

Parent-Child Conflict – Are parent-child arguments becoming unmanageable? We address the source of the stress, providing new tools for communication and emotional regulation.

Divorce or Separation – Separation is difficult for both partners and children. Therapy helps everyone cope with the new changes and emotions.

Blended Family Challenges – Blending families can be hard for step-parents, children, and partners. Family counselling builds trust and reduces tension.

Teen Behavioural Issues – Skipping school, isolation, anger, or risky behaviour can point to underlying emotional stress, anxiety, or overwhelming pressure.

Communication Breakdown – Constantly arguing or sitting in silence? Therapy improves communication, leading to constructive interactions where everyone feels understood, not criticized.

Trauma or Loss – It’s normal to react differently to trauma and loss. We help households process grief together instead of struggling separately.

Mental Health Impact on Family – Depression, anxiety, addiction, and burnout affect the entire household. Therapy improves understanding and lessens blame.

Signs Your Family May Need Therapy

When life at home feels overwhelming, we can offer valuable support. We help identify the root causes of family conflict, allowing you to break free from any negative, recurring patterns. Here are a few signs your family may need therapy:

How Effective is Family Therapy
  • Constant Arguments or Tension: Minor problems trigger extreme reactions. Conversations feel exhausting rather than productive. Family members are defensive before discussions even begin.
  • Avoidance or Emotional Distance: Feeling isolated from one another on a regular basis. This can lead to eating separately, keeping secrets, children staying in their rooms, and/or ignoring each other.
  • Difficulty Resolving Conflicts: The same issues keep resurfacing for months or years. Nothing truly gets resolved, even after long conversations. Family members are unable to have meaningful interactions.
  • Major Life Transitions: Moving, job changes, illness, marriage, divorce, children leaving home, teenagers transitioning to college or university, and financial pressure are some examples of stressful life events.
  • Feeling “Stuck” as a Family: Repeating patterns, unable to move forward, or burdened by the same old routines? Feeling stuck can make it difficult to grow and find joy in daily life.

Our Approach to Family Therapy

At Positive Mind Wellness, we understand that family conflict rarely stems from one single problem. Tensions may build through stress, poor communication, emotional reactions, or unresolved trauma.

Our family counselling services focus on helping you understand those patterns instead of reacting to them.
We use approaches like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), and Systemic Therapy to help families communicate productively and reestablish emotional connections.

Sessions give each family member a chance to speak openly without interruptions, sarcasm, or blame.

Therapy isn’t set out to prove who’s right or wrong.

We foster a trusting environment where you can learn how to prevent conversations from breaking down and discover what needs to change to make your home feel safer and more comfortable for everyone.

In family therapy, we commonly tackle issues such as:

  • Ongoing tension
  • Parenting disagreements
  • Mental health concerns and their impact on family members
  • Emotional distance
  • Coping with divorce
  • Co-parenting struggles
  • Death of a loved one
  • Uncontrollable or unexplained anger
  • Inability to communicate
How Much Does Family Counselling Cost

What to Expect in a Session

The primary goal is to guide you and your family through tough conversations, emotions, and conflicts, allowing each person to speak honestly without letting discussions spiral out of control. Family sessions typically follow this structure:

Sally Sarieddine family therapist

The first consultation allows us all to learn more about one another. We’ll discuss why you’re seeking family counselling, and if both sides agree to move forward, we’ll match you with a suitable therapist to address your goals.

One of our therapists will reach out to learn about your family dynamic, current struggles, stress points, and communication patterns affecting daily life.

For example, decreasing arguing, establishing healthier boundaries, or improving parenting communication and techniques.

We plan and guide sessions around your individual goals and family dynamics. Your therapist will help you all explain thoughts and emotions without yelling, criticizing, shutting down, or interrupting one another.

The tools you learn will depend on your goals. This can include positive conversation techniques, emotional regulation tools, coping strategies, healthy boundary setting, and ways to respond during stressful situations at home.

Long-term success and positive change require consistency. Sessions typically occur on a weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis, spanning several months or even years. Your family’s needs and wants determine the schedule.

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Benefits of Family Therapy

Therapy gives you a safe place to talk openly with each other while developing new strategies to communicate productively. Benefits of family therapy include:

  • Ability to express emotions and thoughts without hostility
  • Stronger emotional connection between family members
  • Better conflict resolution
  • Clearer boundaries, creating healthier family dynamics
  • Reduced stress, anxiety, and tension within the home

Start with a Complimentary Discovery Session

Families can struggle to understand and communicate effectively with one another. Family therapy helps you bridge the gaps with each other and gives you useful skills to support each other. Get your family the help it needs to better navigate life’s challenges as a team.

To find out more about what this looks like, book a complimentary discovery session with us online or call us.

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FAQs from Family Therapist

When there are changes or problems within a family, this stresses us out as individuals. From this place of anger, sadness, insecurity, burnout, etc., we interact with each other. We can lash out and hurt those closest to us or feel so overwhelmed by the problem that we neglect to nurture our relationships. Other ways that problems affect our relationships are by becoming the breeding ground for distrust, communication struggles, problematic behaviour in children, estrangement, and separation or divorce.

There are many issues that might lead to strained family relationships. These include parenting struggles, addiction, illness, grief, chronic conflict, financial challenges, infidelity, divorce, remarriage, and other life transitions.

Our family psychotherapy or counselling looks at the family through various lenses. We help you identify how each individual is impacted by the problem and might be contributing to the problem or the family atmosphere. This is not to play the blame game but to help everyone see each other within the family system. 

We then help you develop skills to tackle the issue and relate to each other in a healthier manner. Some of these skills include conflict resolution, communication, understanding and support, and coping skills. We draw from various therapeutic models, including attachment-based therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), emotion-focused therapy (EFT), motivational interviewing, narrative therapy, solution-focused therapy, and talk therapy

There are times when the therapist may need to speak to family members or subgroups (parents, siblings, etc.) alone. This will occur during the family session.

 No. The therapist is there to be objective and help every family member feel seen and understood. By doing so, we can help each member function better, which will improve the dynamic of the whole family.

Even the best therapists in the world cannot force change in someone who is unwilling. The family needs to be committed to the therapeutic process. The good news is that even if they remain resistant, we can still work with family members who are willing to show up. As a result, we can still help to change the family dynamics through the members who actively participate.

There is no set timeline. It depends on the complexity of the issues and commitment to the therapeutic process. On average, though, most sessions run over the course of about 8 to 12 weeks.

It depends. Many factors come into play when deciding whether or not to include children in family counselling. The issue at hand, how it’s impacting them, and the child’s developmental level play a part in if and how children are included in counselling sessions. At times, it might be better that children see therapists in individual sessions or in addition to family ones.

The initial assessment for our family counselling services is $245, and each follow-up session is $165. We accept payment by Interac, Visa, Mastercard, Amex, and cash. Most insurance plans cover our services, and we provide direct billing.