Family Therapy in Westchester, NY
Hi, my name is Nicole Goudreau-Green (she/her), and I’m a Family Therapist located in Westchester County, NY. You may be feeling discouraged, hopeless or frustrated with family dynamics. Family therapy can be a great resource to support you through these feelings.
I help families navigate rising conflict, so family members can feel understood and connected with each other. If you’re ready to start interacting differently, please reach out and schedule a complimentary 15 minute phone consultation with me today.
My approach to Family Therapy in Westchester
I’m a Westchester based Family Therapist, mom, wife, sister and daughter, specializing in work with families experiencing intense emotion and conflict. Through a relational, culturally sensitive, and narrative form of family therapy, I’ll help you begin to:
Communicate without yelling or ignoring each other.
Respond in a less reactive way.
And connect in meaningful ways.
I come to family therapy with many years of work with adolescents and families. My approach as a family therapist uses curiosity, hypothesis, story-telling and reframing. We work together to get unstuck from unhelpful patterns and create new ways of relating and interacting.
No two families are the same, so I use techniques that work best for each family.
I work to understand individual life experiences, socio-economic factors, ethnicity, family history, and trauma. As well as, relationships from one generation to the next; and the relationships between systems and the family unit (like educational, political, racial, neighborhood, etc) Having this foundation, helps me support you in developing more effective communication, decision-making and conflict resolution skills.
While training to become a family therapist, I’ve spent time studying with the Ackerman Institute for the Family, where much of my approach stems from. Their framework provides a knowledge base of attachment styles, systems work, narrative therapy, structural family therapy, and social justice. This provides me the skills to help you and your family achieve long term success. Sensitive to your individual and family needs and goals.
REASONS to consider family therapy
Dealing with different personalities, needs, beliefs, and conflict in families is expected and normal. How these are handled differs from family to family, and can change across the lifespan of a family.
Things that you used to be able to brush off may start driving you crazy. Maybe communication has always been a struggle, and has become more difficult lately. Perhaps you know something isn’t working between members in the family. And you don’t know what to do or how to change it.
Perhaps your once amiable child is now an irritable, emotional teen and despite your best efforts, you often manage to say something that ends up making things escalate. Or maybe your partner or other family members make things worse and your efforts to calm things down only cause more conflict.
Or the reverse: your parents are on your back about everything and you can’t seem to take a breath. They aren’t understanding you and don’t know how to support you.
When conflict occurs, it can be hard to stay calm. In families, no matter the makeup, there are so many factors that play into how you interact with each other.
Interactions don’t just occur verbally, they happen nonverbally and behaviorally also. We often communicate with each other silently within families without even realizing it. Through family therapy here in Westchester, NY, I’ll help you bring awareness to how this unspoken communication impacts one another.
I’ll help you look at conflict through a new lens. Support you in learning to communicate your feelings in a way that opens, not shuts, the door to communication. And help you identify strength in what you once perceived as problems.
Westchester Based Family Therapy FAQs
+ What exactly is family therapy?
Family therapy is therapy for the entire family. Often problems are viewed from a person perspective. Family therapy helps look at how interactions between members (even seemingly quiet ones) may contribute.
+ What are family therapy sessions like?
The first session is usually the entire family unit. Weekly follow up sessions include a variety of members, depending on the family dynamics and the goal of therapy.
For example, I may meet with a single member of the family for a part of the session, and then another member, and then everyone. Or, I may ask that only 2 or 3 members of the family attend a session. Again, it’s family dependent, and always with the greater family goal in mind.
+ Who is family therapy for?
Everyone in the family. When someone participates in individual therapy, it often requires others in the family to change. Whether they want to or not. Family therapy can help that adjustment process.
+ What are the goals and benefits of family therapy?
The goal is something we work to come up with together. Your family drives it, with the family therapist’s guidance and reflection.
Family therapy can help bring family members closer and repair or create relationships that didn’t exist before. It can help bring new understanding to an individual’s behaviors and what is contributing to “problems.”
Some families come to therapy because an individual in the family has a mental health diagnosis and they don’t know how to support them. Some come because of a transition within the family, whether seen as “good” or “bad.” As well as, intense conflict, loss and trauma.
+ What is your fee?
$475 for the initial 90-minute Intake Appointment and $350 for weekly 60-minute follow up sessions.
step two
We’ll set a time to talk briefly before the initial appointment to determine if I’m a good fit in helping your family’s needs. If I am, we’ll move forward with an intake appointment. In this first 60-minute session, we’ll explore current family dynamics, go through some history and I’ll lay out a plan of how we can move in the direction of your goals.
step three
We’ll meet weekly (either in person or virtually) for 50-minute sessions. We’ll regularly check-in about what’s working, what’s not, and adjust the plan when needed.
Get help from a Westchester Therapist today.
Family life can be stressful, and doesn’t have to be. I can help. Call for a free 15 minute phone consultation.