What makes my approach different?

I am a family therapist but I don't believe in endless therapy. From the get go, we work to understand the families' stories, what’s driving the difficulty, where the system is stuck, and what needs to change and in what order.

Many families come to me after months or years of individual therapy that helped them understand more — but didn’t change day-to-day life.

My work focuses on moving families out of patterns, not just insight. I draw on 4 trained disciplines and use an integrative therapeutic interventions to support families. I work in a structured way with clear therapeutic goals in mind and skills based approaches to help families move forward and bring harmony to their families.

When Family Therapy Becomes Necessary

Most families don't seek family therapy because things are mildly difficult. They come because something has broken down — safety, trust, connection, or all three.

You might recognise some of these:

You keep having the same argument, over and over, with no resolution
Conflict escalates quickly, or ends in silence and shutdown between family members
It feels like trauma triggers everyone in the family, and no one know how to navigate that
Your
Your teenager's behaviour feels frightening — aggression, self-harm, or risk-taking
You feel like strangers, or adversaries, under the same roof
You've tried individual therapy for yourself, and your teenager, and nothing has changed at home
School refusal, arguments over screens, substances, or safety are a daily battle
A crisis — a disclosure, an incident, a diagnosis — has shaken the whole family
Resentment and exhaustion have built up, and won't shift

At this stage, generic advice or individual therapy often isn't enough.

What Is Family And Systemic Psychotherapy?

Family and Systemic Psychotherapy — often called family therapy — helps people in close relationships better understand and support one another.

It creates a safe space to explore difficult thoughts and emotions, understand each other’s perspectives, recognise individual needs, build on family strengths, and make meaningful changes in how you relate and live together.

Challenges rarely appear in isolation. It is often a signal of distress, disconnection, overwhelm, or unmet emotional needs — and when we work systemically, we create change that doesn’t rely on one person trying harder.

My Role As Your Family Therapist

I don't just talk about your family's pattern or ask you endless questions.

My role is to:

understand what's really driving the behaviour, for everyone in the family- not just your teenager
slow things down when conflict starts to spiral
work with the whole family system, because the teenager is never the whole story
build real, practical skills you can use at home immediately — not just talk about
help you rebuild safety, connection, and calm — step by step

This is not endless, open-ended therapy with no direction. It's structured, skills-based family therapy — grounded in 30 years of frontline experience and systemic practice.

Families Work With Me Achieve The best Results Because...

I work with your whole family

Real, lasting change rarely happens when one person is singled out and "fixed" in isolation. I bring the whole family into the picture because the patterns that need to shift live between you, not inside just one person.

I go beneath the behaviour, to what's really driving it.

Behaviour never the whole story. With 30 years of frontline expcrience, I help you understand what's really happening underneath, so the change we make actually holds and sustains.

This is structured, skills-based family therapy - no endless talking

Understanding your family isn't the same as changing what happens at home. I don't just help you talk about the problems, I help you build the real, practical skills that change it.

Every family is different, and so is my approach with you

I work with your family's specific patterns, history, and challenges because what helps one family can bet entirely wrong for another. Your family has its own script that influences everything at home.

This work is not always easy. You may cry or laugh together. You may aruge in the sessions like you argue at home, or you may hear things from your family that you have never heard them say before, but if you stay committed and do the work you will see your family coming closer and see the change you have longed for.

How Would You Know That Family Therapy Is Working For You?

Individual therapy has real value — but on its own, it often can’t reach what’s really happening in a struggling family, because it works with one person in isolation. Its focus is your thoughts, your feelings, your behaviour — looked at on their own, outside the relationships that shape them every day.

Family therapy starts from a different place. It looks at you and everyone around you because a teenager’s outburst, a parent’s exhaustion, a sibling’s withdrawal rarely exist in isolation. They’re connected, each shaping and responding to the others. When only one person is worked with, the rest of the family carries on in the same pattern so even real progress in the therapy room can quietly unravel once that person comes home.

That’s why families so often tell me: “We tried therapy for our teenager, and nothing really changed at home.” It’s not that the therapy failed. It’s that the family was never part of the work.

So how do you know it’s actually working?

Change in family therapy doesn’t usually arrive as one dramatic moment — it shows up in small, real shifts you start to notice at home:

There are fewer arguments, and the ones that happen don’t spiral the way they used to
You can talk without interrupting, defending, or shutting down
Your teenager is willing to be in the same room as you, even just to watch TV together
Someone apologises, or admits they were wrong — and it doesn’t turn into another fight
You notice yourself pausing, instead of reacting the way you always have
There are small moments of warmth again — a joke, a hug, a shared laugh — that had disappeared
Your teenager tells you something, instead of hiding it
The house feels calmer, even on hard days
You feel like a team again, not opponents
These moments might feel small. But they are exactly how real, lasting change begins — quietly, at home, in the space between you.

Ways we can work together

Families come to therapy at different stages, and the level of support needed can vary depending on the complexity of the situation. For this reason, there are two ways families can choose to work with me - including a block of 6 sessions or a 3 month structured systemic intervention.

How to get started

The first step is to book your initial consultaiton session. The session is for us to explore what's going well in your family, the challenges, and your hopes for family therapy.

Family Therapy Initial Consultation
1 hr 10 min
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Fees & availability

Fee is provided on request.
Family Therapy Sessions are online or in-person in Edinburgh (depending on your location/availability)