A family dining at a table, enjoying their meal as bottle rockets of emotions fly over. This is not a depiction of a dramatic movie scene. To some it is just a snapshot of daily life. This right here is family therapy, jumping into the middle of life’s game of emotional tag. Read more now on Family counseling services

Once have you stood in the kitchen with a spatula in hand when your sibling makes a sharp remark. Between dutiful child, the committed partner, and the loving parent, it’s easy for the tension to boil over as a pot out on the burner. Family therapy is a pressure valve of a sort, a place to air grievances and a go at dealing with issues prior they scald.

For a therapist’s office it’s like grand central station for emotions. Thoughts come in trains. A therapist untangles these tracks to make the smooth commute for connection. There’s no hand holding and soft lights. It does have a fair dose of reality, a little rolling up of sleeves, and even a tear or two.

Think about trying to unravel a puzzle without the last piece. Miscommunication in families is that elusive piece. Therapy becomes the hound dog, sniffing on the couch under it. Structuring means everybody steps into the other’s shoes. Of course, not literally — that would make for some awkward foot fungus situations.

Then there was the notorious teenage eye roll, one of the most universal languages with which many parents were baffled. These expressions are heart-sinking, but therapists make these into doorways for dialogue. Frustration sits front row on all the misunderstanding intentions.

You’ve heard of walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. It could be as simple as walking around the corner totally overloaded with their baggage. You’re laughing about cousin Jim’s ridiculous dance moves one moment and putting memories on knots in neglected laces in another.

However, humor spices things up and, of course, we didn’t. A chuckle can bring barriers down, it blows open a door to the mixing of the realistic with the possible. They learn to laugh WITH, not at, each other; even the stiffest of parent jokes that just seem to refuse to die.

Family therapy doesn’t always mean the road less traveled — it may be travelled more, but at a different juncture. It is a mosaic of stories and their experience shared. Families come for an open ear, a guiding hand and maybe a box of tissues for good measure and are invited to travel their story as a tangle or as a thread.’