Family Therapy
Family relationships shape who we are. When those bonds feel strained or broken, everyone suffers. As an IMAGO-certified marriage and family therapist, I help families in Austin and Plano rebuild trust, improve communication, and create the connections they truly want.
Build Stronger Bonds Through Family Therapy
Every family faces challenges. The difference lies in having the right tools and support to work through them together. My approach focuses on healing relationships while honoring each family member's unique needs and perspectives.
Family Therapy Services for Today's Complex Challenges
Supporting Families Through Divorce
Protecting Children During Family Transitions
Divorce doesn't have to destroy your family. I help parents create healthy co-parenting relationships that put children's well-being first. Together, we develop strategies for:
- Building effective co-parenting communication
- Keeping adult conflicts away from children
- Establishing consistent routines across two homes
- Managing difficult emotions without harming kids
Blended Family Support
Creating Unity While Honoring Individual Bonds
Merging two families creates unique challenges that require patience and skill. I guide stepfamilies through:
- Defining roles and boundaries that work for everyone
- Handling loyalty conflicts with compassion
- Balancing new relationships with existing ones
- Harmonizing different parenting approaches
Adult Children and Family Dynamics
Navigating Grown Family Relationships
Adult family relationships require different skills than parenting young children. I specialize in helping families address:
- Changing parent-adult child dynamics
- Creating healthy boundaries without losing closeness
- Sharing caregiving responsibilities fairly
- Healing old hurts that resurface over time
- Family meetings about important decisions
Managing Difficult Family Members
When Family Relationships Become Toxic
Some family members display narcissistic behaviors that harm everyone around them. I provide specialized support for families dealing with:
- Emotional protection strategies that actually work
- Setting boundaries that stick
- Recognizing manipulation before it damages you
- Making difficult decisions about contact
- Recovering from years of family abuse
My Family Therapy Approach
Understanding Family Systems
Your family operates as a connected system where each person's actions affect everyone else. We'll explore how to:
- Break negative patterns passed down through generations
- Change individual behaviors that impact the whole family
- Build healthier ways of interacting together
- Strengthen your family's ability to handle future challenges
Faith-Centered Family Counseling
Christian families in Austin and Plano receive counseling that respects their beliefs while addressing real problems. This approach includes:
- Applying biblical wisdom to family situations
- Resolving conflicts between faith expectations and family reality
- Supporting families through church-related difficulties
Signs Your Family Could Benefit from Therapy
Family therapy helps when:
- Family members can't talk without fighting
- Ongoing conflicts create tension in your home
- Divorce or separation affects everyone
- Mental health or addiction issues impact the family
- Major life changes strain family relationships
- Grief and loss affect the whole family
- Toxic behaviors damage family bonds
What Makes My Family Therapy Different
Specialized Training and Experience
With over 10 years of experience and advanced training in IMAGO therapy and PACT, I offer:
- A safe, judgment-free environment for honest conversation
- Proven methods that create lasting change
- Practical skills your family can use right away
- Session options (50, 80, or 110 minutes) that fit your family's needs
Convenient Austin and Plano Locations
Evening and weekend appointments make it easier for busy families to prioritize their relationships. Both offices provide complete privacy and a welcoming atmosphere where everyone feels comfortable sharing.
Take the First Step Toward Family Healing
Strong families don't happen by accident. They require intention, effort, and sometimes professional guidance to navigate life's challenges successfully.
Your family's story isn't over. With the right support, you can write new chapters filled with understanding, connection, and love.
Ready to Begin?
Schedule your complimentary 15-minute phone consultation. We'll discuss your family's specific challenges and explore how therapy can help create the relationships you truly want.
Initial Phone Consult
15-20 Minutes: Let's begin with a conversation about your family's challenges and goals. Whether you're dealing with divorce, blended family issues, or toxic relationships, this free consultation helps us determine how I can best support your family's journey toward healing.
50 Minute Family In-Person
50 Minutes: Family therapy sessions provide a safe space where every member can be heard and understood. We'll work together to improve communication, resolve conflicts, and strengthen the bonds that matter most. Whether you're navigating divorce, dealing with adult children, or managing difficult family dynamics, these sessions offer hope and practical solutions.
80 Minute Family In-Person
80 Minutes: Family issues often require more time to unpack, especially when multiple perspectives need to be heard. These extended sessions are ideal for addressing complex family dynamics, working through major transitions like divorce or remarriage, or when dealing with narcissistic family members. The extra time allows everyone to feel heard and progress to be made.
110 Minute Family In-Person
110 Minutes: For families facing particularly challenging situations-such as navigating a high-conflict divorce, addressing generational trauma, or working through deep-seated issues with toxic family members-these two-hour sessions provide the space needed for meaningful breakthroughs. Ideal for families who prefer less frequent but more intensive work.
What clients are saying about Family Therapy
Our adult kids were making blending our families impossible. We were worried that they'd never get along, and that they'd ruin all that was good between the two of us. Katey met with all of us together and helped us to set some reasonable expectations with the kids, while prioritizing our new marriage. Now family get togethers aren't as stressful, and our relationship has never been better!
We felt pretty hopeless in our marriage and decided to give it one last shot in therapy, and I'm so glad that our friend suggested that we work with Katey. It wasn't easy to repair the years of hurt, but we learned new ways to deal with our conflicts and to really talk to each other. We're happier now and closer than ever before.
My ex and I were struggling to co-parent after our divorce. Katey helped me to set aside the guilt and shame I had about making our kids' lives more difficult, and to focus on the next chapter. I know now that the kids will be OK, and so will I.
Having worked with KV for the better part of a year, our marriage is bearing new fruit. We have supported our relationship and family with therapy from the beginning. We have worked with a few approaches and marriage therapists over the 20 years together. I am recognizing new growth in both of us which is enriching our relationship and bears fruit for not only us, but for our children also. Relationships can be vulnerable to prior life experience, Emotional presets and scars from prior and early life experience often influence our reactions and behavior. Defenses develop naturally and can stubbornly block connection, commrodardy, intimacy and access to love exchange. The approach KV uses is a highly effective tool that aims to work around roadblocks and landmines imposed by our emotional defenses, to access loving relationships with a powerful approach that doesn’t try to fix our ingrained defenses but rather yields them powerless in the quest of relationship quality. This is achieved by a protocol to practice when either person hits a snag. Her approach is supported and delineated by reading materials from the originators of this approach and founders of this movement in therapy.
