Marriage and Family Services
Marriage and Family Services at Spectrum Wellness in Gilbert & Mesa, AZ
What does Marriage and Family therapy include?
While managing our internal thoughts and emotions is a primary focus in adult life, our relationships often define the quality of our lives. Relationships with our significant other, children, parents and siblings, and even friends can all add to or detract from our quality of life. Marriage and Family therapy services at Spectrum focus on identifying specific challenges interfering with relationships or quality of life and addressing those conditions through proven psychotherapeutic methods.
Our Marriage and Family health professionals follow this approach for providing professional therapeutic services to adults:
Assessment
Intervention
How does it work?
Marriage and Family therapy is a vast and amorphous topic, so there is sometimes a complex answer. The best we can do is utilize various evidence-based practices based on the specific situation. We keep it simple. We believe in and promote a few fundamental principles:
1. Respect each other’s feelings. The other’s feelings are a fact, not a subject for debate.
2. Share your emotional truth gently. Use “I statements” to avoid accusations. Avoid absolutes like “never and always”.
3. Try to communicate in the other’s “language.”
4. Allow each other to postpone a difficult conversation to a better time.
5. No scorekeeping!
6. Take responsibility for yourself, your actions, and your personal growth. Stay in your lane.
7. Practice random acts of kindness.
8. Pick your battles. “Is this a hill you’re ready to die on?”
9. Be courageous! Lean in first.
10. When you have the choice between being right and being kind, choose kind.
When should you seek out Marriage and Family therapeutic services?
Anytime a close relationship with a spouse, child, or other family member is stressful and non-productive. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, anxious, fatigued, angered, or hopeless about your personal relationships, it could be time to seek the help of a Marriage and Family health professional
Marriage and Family therapists can identify and treat these conditions and more:
- Dissatisfaction with key personal relationships
- Anxiety and depression
- Sexual and relationship trauma
- Self-esteem issues
- Coping with grief and loss
- Stress management
- Life transitions
- Sexual identity
- Coping with physical illness
Marriage and Family Services Team
Sarah Koop, LPC
Licensed Professional Counselor