ADULT FAMILY WORK
The first relationship is still running.
The patterns between parent and child don't end when the child grows up.
They evolve, go underground, and show up in every conversation that escalates too fast, every visit that feels like walking on eggshells, every phone call that ends with someone shutting down.
Adult parent/child relationships carry decades of unspoken history. Old roles that no longer fit. Expectations that were never negotiated.
Love that's real but can't seem to reach. One person pursues connection, the other protects themselves from it. Both want something different.
Neither knows how to get there without losing something.
This is some of the most tender and consequential relational work there is.
Working together
We work with the relational patterns still running between parent and adult child.
Not to assign blame, not to rehash the past, but to create space where each person can be heard without anyone having to disappear.
I draw on Relational Life Therapy (RLT), Internal Family Systems (IFS), and somatic approaches.
We identify the stance each person takes under stress, connect those stances to how they were formed, and work toward a version of the relationship where honesty and closeness can coexist.
This work often involves navigating very different capacities. One person may have done years of therapy. The other may be coming to this for the first time. One may be eager to go deep.
The other may need to control the pace of how much gets opened.
The work moves at the speed that the family system as a whole can sustain.
Sessions are 75 minutes and ongoing.