Tag Archives: family counseling

Growing percentage of American adults are living single

By Bethany Bray December 1, 2021

A growing share of American adults are living the single life.

The Pew Research Center found that in 2019, 38% of American adults between the ages of 25 and 54 were not married or living with a romantic partner. This number has increased significantly in the past two decades, with only 29% being unpartnered in 1990. While this population includes individuals who are divorced, separated or widowed, an increasing portion have never been married.

The number of married adults fell from 67% to 53% between 1990 and 2019, and the percentage of people who were cohabitating with a partner rose slightly from 4% to 9%. Also, the share of adults who have never been married jumped from 17% to 33% during that time period.

Men are more likely to be unpartnered than women, Pew reports. However, the one exception to this rule is among Black women, with 62% of Black women and 55% of Black men living without a spouse or romantic partner.

Overall, the race and ethnicity breakdown for Americans ages 25 to 54 who were unpartnered in 2019 was as follows:

  • 59% of Black adults
  • 38% of Hispanics
  • 33% of whites
  • 29% of Asians

This evolution of Americans’ living arrangements has also laid bare the financial and other disparities that exist between coupled and single adults. Pew found that adults who live without a partner earn less (on average) than coupled adults, are less likely to finish a bachelor’s degree and are more likely to be financially unstable or unemployed. Single adults’ median salary is $14,000 less than coupled adults, Pew reports.

These statistics create many questions for the counseling profession, including the emotional and relational needs that might arise among single individuals, says Katherine M. Hermann-Turner, an associate professor in the Department of Counseling & Psychology at Tennessee Technological University whose doctoral cognate was in couples and family counseling.

“Many counselors are likely seeing unpartnered clients or family members of unpartnered individuals for services, but what do we know about the stressors of this demographic? … The first step is [for counselors to have an] awareness that this is a growing demographic,” says Hermann-Turner, a past president of the Association for Adult Development and Aging, a division of ACA. “My antenna as a counselor, particularly someone who operates from a systems perspective and relational-cultural theory framework, goes to the potential increased need for emotional connection for unpartnered individuals rather than the economic stressors faced by this demographic.”

In addition to the financial and economic disparities, Pew also found that unpartnered adults were more likely to be living with their parents than adults who are married or cohabitating. Thirty-one percent of unpartnered men and 24% of unpartnered women lived with at least one parent in 2019, which is much higher than that statistic for partnered adults (2% for both men and women).

Hermann-Turner notes that this information raises further questions about what clients who fall into this demographic might need when working with a professional counselor.

“Are these individuals substituting the support of their family of origin for partnership or reliance on external systems of support (i.e., romantic partnership)?,” she asks. “If so, why is this the route for many individuals given the typical complexity of a family system? Is this evidence of an earlier lack of career guidance? Underdeveloped relational skills? If so, how can we as counselors begin to intervene earlier and develop these skills in a younger population? Should we be reconceptualizing family counseling to include an emphasis on adult children and their parents? … I am intentionally avoiding the ‘chicken or egg’ argument and pondering the possibility that enmeshed family systems have intentionally stunted one child’s ability for emotional independence as a way to serve the needs of the parents.”

Olga Strelnikova/Shutterstock.com

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What do you think? How might these demographic shifts affect the work counselors do with clients? How should the profession adapt to help clients and meet their needs?

Add your thoughts in the comment section below.

 

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Read more from the Pew Research Center: https://pewrsr.ch/3DeLtrm

 

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Opinions expressed and statements made in articles appearing on CT Online should not be assumed to represent the opinions of the editors or policies of the American Counseling Association.

How (not) to isolate during the COVID-19 pandemic

By Bethany Bray October 28, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic has steeply curtailed social gatherings, travel plans and in-person events for most of 2020. And that has raised something of a perplexing scenario for counselors and other mental health professionals: When almost everyone is isolating themselves physically to some extent — and will be for the foreseeable future — how do you identify that a client might be isolating in the “classic” sense, which is typically viewed as a red flag that someone might be struggling with their mental health?

“As I’ve gone through the last six months, my view on what isolation looks like has definitely changed,” says Sean Nixon, a licensed clinical professional counselor outside of Boise, Idaho, who works with children and families. “I used to think of isolating as a person who is off by themselves, not engaged or interacting with anyone. But now, [for] a lot of people who I’ve worked with in my practice, there’s this forced, constant isolating. Even now that they can leave the house, to walk up and give someone a hug, as you might have done six months ago, is not the norm.”

Nixon, like many clinicians, has needed to shift his thinking about what isolation looks like in clients during the COVID-19 pandemic, and respond differently as well. When screening for isolation and depression, one of the primary indicators counselors look for is a loss of interest or lack of participation in activities that a person once enjoyed. But throughout the pandemic, many clients haven’t felt safe playing group sports or participating in activities or hobbies that typically involve others. Plus, many of these activities haven’t been available anyway because of widespread cancellations and closures.

“Now, when asking those screener questions, I have to consider the person’s situation. … We have to screen more — are we seeing an increase in depression, an increase in stress because of the pandemic, or are we dealing with both here?” says Nixon, a member of the American Counseling Association who works as a pediatric mental health therapist in an outpatient setting for a medical system.

Nixon says he has also broadened his scope of thinking about isolation to look for it both in individuals and entire family units. Not only are families feeling isolated from friends and outside activities that they used to enjoy, but they are sometimes isolating themselves from each other within the household during this stressful time, he explains. This can range from physical withdrawal, such as shutting themselves in their bedrooms, to spending too much time using digital devices as an avoidance mechanism.

Signs of isolation in families with children often become apparent when youngsters express a constant desire to play with or do one-on-one activities with a caregiver, he says. At the same time, many parents are expressing that they feel overwhelmed or that they feel guilty about needing to spend time sequestered away from their children as they work from home.

“From parents, I’m hearing [in sessions] how they just need a break and are feeling like their children always want their attention. They’re trying to find balance while they still have work commitments and are trying to explain to younger children that ‘Mom and Dad aren’t just home; we’re home and we have work to do.’ It’s definitely a strain and struggle on parents,” says Nixon, who is also a licensed marriage and family counselor.

“A lot of times, the previous concept of isolation was as an individual problem,” he continues. “But [as the pandemic worsened] I was working with family units who were limited on where they could go, and I started to see stress and overwhelming emotions that came with being around each other 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As that continued to build, for some families, it helped them grow closer together. For others, it was increasing their dysfunction and tearing them apart faster.”

What to listen for

Ryan Holliman is a licensed professional counselor and supervisor (LPC-S) and a counselor educator who counsels adult clients one day per week at a free medical clinic in Dallas. Forging a strong bond with clients and getting to know what is and isn’t normal behavior for them is always important for clinicians, but that’s even more the case now, he says.

Many of Holliman’s clients have personality disorders and struggle with maintaining long-term relationships. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Holliman has found he needs to assess clients more regularly and rigorously for isolation, including asking focused questions about their relationships and the resources they rely on when experiencing stress.

“Isolation is now a lot more nuanced,” says Holliman, an ACA member and an assistant professor at Tarleton State University. “You have to listen for different things [such as] if they are being proactive about developing social networks and accessing those networks, or are they letting COVID-19 dictate the terms of their social life? … Most relationships right now are facing a lot of stress [because] we’re placing all the emotional weight on a few places.”

Holliman has increased his check-ins with clients about their relationships with friends and family, asking them to rate these relationships on a scale. He asks, “How happy are you with the relationship, and how happy do you think the other person is with the relationship?” The aim of this exercise is to ensure that clients are continuing to grow, not stall, in their relationships during this trying time, he explains.

“With COVID-19, it’s easy [for clients] to say ‘good enough is good enough’ and lapse into complacency. But I tell clients, ‘That’s not what I want for you.’ It would be easy to say, ‘It’s a crisis, it’s a pandemic, and this is as good as it’s going to get.’ But as counselors, we are called to be dealers in hope,” he emphasizes. “Help [clients] move toward hope and [see] that there can be more.”

Among the college student population, many individuals are exhibiting typical signs such as having trouble sleeping or feeling overwhelmed that suggest they are struggling and feeling isolated — but exponentially so, says Elizabeth Bambacus, a student engagement and summer studies administrator at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). She runs a peer mentoring program for first-generation college students, a population that is already susceptible to feeling out of place and experiencing self-doubt. Her program pairs freshmen first-generation students with upperclassmen first-generation students for support, guidance and friendship.

Bambacus says many of her students have talked about feeling like their academic programs are much harder this fall. One student recently remarked that she wouldn’t be upset if she threw her laptop across the room and it broke. In another conversation, a male student told Bambacus that he hadn’t been outdoors in four days.

“We [would] generally have students who pop in [to our office] and say hi and random drop-ins wanting to chat about everything from ‘I’m worried about an assignment’ to ‘I just had a big argument with my dad, and it’s impacting my ability to focus.’ But there isn’t much opportunity for that now,” say Bambacus, who has a doctorate in counselor education and supervision. “It’s just not the same because everyone is avoiding everyone.”

VCU’s campus in Richmond is open, but a majority of the school’s classes are being held online. While some students are staying on campus, many have chosen to live at home or by themselves in apartments off campus, Bambacus says. Most of the ways that students would typically be personally interacting with others, from staying after class to ask a professor a question to getting involved in student clubs and group events, are off the table this fall.

Another big indicator of isolation among students is avoidance behaviors, such as not engaging with peer mentors and neglecting assignments or otherwise letting their academics slide. Bambacus observes that many students, including those who have a prior history of being responsive, aren’t responding to her emails this semester. “College students in general aren’t great at this,” she says, “but I have noticed an uptick.”

Many students this year are also experiencing a resurgence of anxiety and depression that were previously under control, Bambacus adds. Students with those diagnoses are always at risk for isolating behaviors, but this year, that is acutely so. As they begin to feel disconnected, their anxiety spikes and they get behind in their classwork, leading to a vicious cycle, she notes.

“I see students get overwhelmed, get behind in classes, and that’s triggering too — that feeling of doom. ‘Oh no. It’s happening again.’ With all of the anxiety and depressive thoughts, how can anyone do their homework or study for a test? That requires so much mental energy to do that, and the shame in not being able to do that — beating yourself up for not being able to focus for more than 30 seconds at a time — it’s just a cycle.”

Adapt as needed

In addition to checking in more frequently with clients and listening for the different (and potentially new) ways that isolation is affecting them, Holliman is focusing on self-talk. These past few months have left many clients prone to a downward spiral of self-critical thinking, he says.

Many of his clients talk about being “stuck in their own thoughts,” he notes. “When you’re at home all the time, that’s a real struggle to fight that.”

That is all the more acute for clients dealing with reduced income or job loss during the recent economic shifts caused by COVID-19, he adds. Feeling trapped financially can lead to increased feelings of isolation, he says, particularly when added to the social isolation and self-doubt that have gone hand in hand with the pandemic.

“Clients may just need to hear, ‘This is not a normal situation, and you’re handling it,’” Holliman says. “Drawing from compassion-focused therapy, I ask [clients], ‘How are you talking to yourself? What’s the tone of voice you use? Do you give yourself credit for managing your mental health during all of this?’ We all need to give ourselves credit.”

Normalization is an important therapeutic tool right now, says Nellie Scanlon, an ACA member and LPC in the counseling center at Slippery Rock University (SRU) in Pennsylvania. Scanlon, a temporary faculty member at SRU, started a support group this fall for students to talk about the loss, isolation and other feelings they have experienced during the pandemic. The group meets weekly via Zoom.

Like Bambacus, Scanlon says she is seeing an uptick in symptoms of depression and anxiety among the college student population she sees. “Many clients are using the phrase ‘It’s fine’ when they really mean they are not fine. I have been encouraging clients to allow themselves to feel what they are feeling and process those feelings in session. So often, we are expected to be OK and move on without acknowledging that our feelings of loss and loneliness are normal responses in times of crisis such as the current pandemic,” says Scanlon, who successfully defended her dissertation and earned her doctorate in counselor education at Duquesne University earlier this fall.

“I also remind clients that they are more resilient than they realize,” she says. “I ask clients to remember a time in the past when they were successful at bouncing back and talk about it. It seems to be personally impactful for them to recall when they have been resilient in the past, and that increases their confidence level to adjust to current life circumstances.”

Of course, there are also some tried-and-true interventions for addressing isolation and loneliness that counselors are no longer finding helpful or appropriate to use during the pandemic. The professionals interviewed for this article agree that counselors should put exposure therapy and similar techniques on the shelf for now. They say it simply isn’t appropriate to encourage clients struggling with depression, social anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder or other diagnoses to interact with others in person at this time as a way to stave off isolation.

Bambacus notes that many of the go-to suggestions she would typically give to college students to boost their mental wellness, such as calling a friend to get together, going to a campus event or party, or simply getting out of the house to sit at a coffee shop for an hour, are not advisable at this time. She has been forced to consider other ways that she might help students make connections and avoid isolation. “This is definitely bringing out the creativity in us all right now — along with frustration,” Bambacus says with a chuckle.

“I think this is a real struggle given the current social restrictions in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” agrees Scanlon, the chair-elect of ACA’s North Atlantic Region and immediate past president of the Pennsylvania Counseling Association. “I have been encouraging clients to connect with others in a meaningful manner that is effective for them. … Needless to say, there still appears to be an overwhelming loss of personal connection with others because we are limited due to the pandemic in the how, what, when and where of connecting with others.”

Creative connections

Psychoeducation can be a helpful tool in situations in which clients assume that they can’t be social during the pandemic or even push back against that line of thinking, Holliman says. By making themselves aware of out-of-the-box options, counselors can be ready to offer suggestions. For example, Holliman notes that his local library offers book clubs that meet over Zoom.

“There are a lot of unique ways for us to connect with one another,” Holliman says. “Limited options doesn’t mean no options, and that’s something clients really need to hear. There are ways [to find connection], but you have to be creative. The counselor needs to be a creative co-creator of options.”

For many clients, especially those in recovery, the pandemic actually offers more options for attending 12-step meetings and support groups because so many of them are meeting online now, he says.

Holliman found psychoeducation to be a powerful tool recently when working with a woman with bipolar disorder who was estranged from her family and struggling with isolation. She ended up in the hospital due to dosage issues that led to toxicity from one of her medications. In a session following her hospitalization, the client confided in Holliman: “Other than you, those doctors in the hospital were the first people I’ve talked to in a long time.”

Holliman said he knew even prior to this session that relationships were a challenge for the client, but her hospitalization served as a tipping point and an indicator of how acute her isolation had become during the pandemic. During the session, Holliman spent a good deal of time normalizing the client’s experience with bipolar disorder, emphasizing that supports were available and connecting her with resources, including online support groups for individuals with bipolar disorder. Holliman told the client, “You may feel alone, but you don’t have to be alone.”

“She had no idea there were others like her out there,” Holliman says. “She made the comment, ‘I thought we all just ended up in asylums.’ She didn’t realize [there were supports]. She had just assumed, ‘This is how life goes.’”

Clients with bipolar disorder are at higher risk for isolation because of the rapid mood fluctuations of their disorder and the impact that can have on their close relationships, often causing these clients to become estranged from friends and family members, Holliman notes.

This client has engineered a significant turnaround since her hospitalization, according to Holliman, including rekindling her relationship with her parents. “Things aren’t perfect [in this client’s life], but they are better,” he says.

Bambacus also emphasizes the need for creativity to help clients find ways to avoid isolation during the pandemic. This fall, she started offering online office hours and helped organize a series of faculty talks (also held online) for her first-generation students on nonacademic topics such as impostor syndrome.

At the same time, she is encouraging her upperclassmen mentors to organize events for students in the mentoring program, with a focus on staying connected. If the event is in person, students must hold it outside and limit it to a small number of attendees. Other students are planning virtual events, such as game nights and a live “cooking show” in which students demonstrate how to make their favorite recipes over video chat. Still others are doing low-risk volunteer work, such as writing letters to older adults or doing a trash pickup outdoors.

Bambacus has also been checking in with students more frequently. For those exhibiting withdrawal or avoidance behaviors, she sometimes includes a gentle reminder that she needs to hear back from them.

“I’m watching everyone a little more carefully,” she says. “Especially students who put on a brave face, they often appreciate check-ins. … I am watching students who are more susceptible to slowing down during the semester and struggling and those who have taken breaks [withdrawn from enrollment] previously because of their mental health. Often, the first sign they are struggling is unresponsiveness. I get creative with my emails and give them a deadline, such as ‘I need to know by Friday.’ Once they respond, then I say, ‘Hey, you’re there. Let’s talk!’”

This fall, she has been emphasizing self-care and wellness among her students, including the importance of physical activity, eating and sleeping well, getting outside and turning off the news. She is also pushing the message that it is OK to ask for help when you are struggling. Even something as simple as encouraging students to call their friends and family members instead of texting, so that they actually hear one another’s voices, can foster stronger connection, she says.

“There’s so much healing in knowing that you’re not alone in your feelings of isolation, so create opportunities for clients to see that other people are in the same boat,” Bambacus says. “Maybe that means running more groups and offering those types of services. It can be held outside or virtually. [It’s] just having that space where clients can see that this is not just happening to them and that other people are surviving ‘in spite of’ and offering them some hope and options. Isolation is such a devious thing because it makes you think that you are the only one — you’re not just alone; you’re the only one who’s alone — and that’s just not true.”

Families and isolation: A group effort

For families struggling with isolation, Nixon is focusing on ways they can be intentional about prioritizing connection, both within and outside the family unit. With all the stressors families are facing during the pandemic, it is easy to lapse into bad habits, he notes. “When you get resolved to ‘this is how life is going to be,’ you kind of go through the motions,” says Nixon, a board member of the Association for Child and Adolescent Counseling, a division of ACA.

Step one of being intentional often involves creating and maintaining a daily schedule in the household, Nixon advises. He suggests setting times for family members to focus on work or school and times to focus on connecting as a family, including designated times to put away all electronic devices.

Family time should include activities that prompt family members to interact and engage with one another to minimize isolation and boost mental health, Nixon says. This could include everything from getting outside and playing in the yard to coloring or drawing together, playing board games, having an indoor dance party or engaging in a scavenger hunt. (For more ideas, see the article “Supporting families with engagement strategies during COVID-19.”)

The lack of in-person celebrations during the pandemic, especially surrounding birthdays, has been hard for young clients and families. Nixon has helped clients find new ways to connect with family and friends to mark special occasions, including blowing their celebratory candles out during video chats and organizing walk-by or drive-by “parades” of well-wishers.

Similarly, many of Nixon’s adolescent clients are missing the in-person interactions they would normally have with friends and peers through school and extracurricular activities. Here, intentionality also helps fill the void. Nixon asks adolescent clients to identify what they enjoyed most before the pandemic. The answers usually involve hanging out with friends, watching movies or playing video games together. One of the ways his clients have adapted is by setting a specific time to watch a movie simultaneously with friends (each in their own home) and then texting or video chatting with one another as they watch.

Nixon also encourages family clients to identify substitutes for things they enjoyed doing together before the pandemic. He uses a whiteboard in sessions to visualize clients’ ideas and prompt dialogue.

“I get their perspective and talk about what their preference and focus was before the pandemic. Was it being together at mealtimes? Then be intentional about that now. Or if sports were really important, organized sports may not be an option, but they can play as a family or set time aside to sit down and review tapes from past games and analyze them,” says Nixon, a past president of the Idaho Counseling Association. “Identify what was important to [clients] before, and help them realize that it’s still important and how to find a new context for it.”

Counselors can guide clients to find new rituals by identifying the core reason they enjoyed certain activities before the pandemic. Ask “why do families do what they do, and what meaning do they give to it? Then try and find something else that will give them the same meaning in a different context,” Nixon advises.

For one family on Nixon’s caseload, family meals were very important, and they found connection by going out to eat in restaurants together. This became more challenging when many restaurants closed their dining rooms throughout the spring and summer.

Nixon helped the family reframe this ritual and brainstorm ways they could re-create the aspects of eating out that they most enjoyed. After breaking it down, the family identified the core features they enjoyed as trying new restaurants and experiencing new cuisines together. The family had a self-imposed rule of never eating at the same restaurant twice in one month or having the same type of cuisine twice in one week, so they were always looking for new places to try, Nixon says.

“For them, what was meaningful was … the adventure of trying something new and ordering with the intention of sharing it with someone at the table,” he says. “The intention was to be adventurous, to try something new and to share that together.”

Once they came to this realization, Nixon suggested the family experience new foods together by learning to cook them at home. Their initial reply? “We don’t cook,” Nixon recalls.

Undeterred, Nixon suggested the family search the internet for ideas and how-to videos. The family started small, making an appetizer, and found it was easier than they had assumed it would be. From there, the activity blossomed into setting aside one night per week to replicate dishes together that they had previously enjoyed at restaurants.

“They didn’t want to mess up and fail, and they didn’t want to waste time and money [on specialty ingredients]. But they found that nothing was ever a failure, just as with going out to a restaurant that they didn’t like. It was the trying that they enjoyed,” Nixon says.

Now, even with restaurants reopening, this family continues with its at-home cooking adventures. They set aside the money they save by eating at home to splurge on an occasional restaurant meal that they previously would have considered a treat.

“The opportunity that this family has taken to take a step outside of their comfort zone has brought them closer together,” Nixon says. “They have found that family members have skills that they did not completely see before, and they have found that small changes have always impacted the family. In the past, the small changes were seen negatively, [but] now they see the opportunity and positivity that can come within the family.”

Looking ahead

Nixon says he has been contemplating the long-term effects the COVID-19 pandemic might have on mental health, especially with the increased physical and social isolation that will return for many people during the winter months. As cases of COVID-19 continue to rise in the U.S., combined with the arrival of the traditional flu season, it is possible that states or localities may reimpose some of the stringent lockdown measures, such as school and business closures, that happened back in the spring.

It is possible that counselors might witness an uptick not only of isolating behaviors but also feelings of hopelessness and suicidal ideation among clients, Nixon says. With that in mind, he is increasing his screenings of clients for safety, harm and abuse, plus making sure that he shares resources such as crisis hotline numbers.

“I have been thinking about that a lot lately: how to help families and clients with the potential for an extended stay at home and the long-term aspect with winter coming on,” Nixon says. “How can families be intentional [to avoid isolation]? What’s important to [a client’s] family, and how do you continue to keep that ember burning?”

 

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Contact the counselors interviewed for this article:

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Bethany Bray is a senior writer and social media coordinator for Counseling Today. Contact her at bbray@counseling.org.

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Opinions expressed and statements made in articles appearing on CT Online should not be assumed to represent the opinions of the editors or policies of the American Counseling Association.

Exploring the ties that bind

By Bethany Bray April 24, 2020

Family therapy pioneer Virginia Satir famously said, “If we can heal the family, we can heal the world.”

Satir believed the family to be the “factory” where all people are made. She was among the first to champion an idea now commonly acknowledged among counselors: A person’s family of origin and family relationships influence that individual’s health, personality and life patterns — and, when explored in therapy, provide a fuller picture from which to help the client. That understanding can be expanded even further when the individual consents to involving family members in counseling sessions.

When considering whether it is appropriate to involve a client’s family in counseling sessions, “I look at what the primary focus of our work will be,” says Esther Benoit, a licensed professional counselor (LPC) with a private practice in Newport News, Virginia. “If the primary focus is on relational [issues], I want to bring in as many people as can possibly show up to sessions.”

Regardless of whether professional clinical counselors work with family groups, couples or individuals, an exploration of family issues can provide a more holistic picture of clients and what is contributing to their presenting issues.

Heather Ehinger, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Connecticut, urges practitioners to ask questions that dig into the traditions, boundaries and roles in the family systems in which clients operate. For example, perhaps clients perceive their role within their family to be that of the troublemaker or the placater. How did they arrive at that role? Is it a role that they desire
to inhabit?

“Using a family systems lens to treat anyone is very important,” Ehinger says. “Even if all you do is treat individuals … [using] a holistic lens, a family systems lens, in their assessment … will enrich any counseling that did not include that already.”

Trauma and transitions

Although discussing a client’s family background or involving family members in counseling sessions can enhance work with clients regardless of what brought them to counseling, there are a number of issues for which family work can be particularly helpful. The counselors interviewed for this article report that issues related to trauma and transitions — such as blending two families after a second marriage — come up repeatedly in their work with families.

Trauma, including past sexual, physical or emotional abuse, can often lead to problems with attachment in families, notes James Robert Bitter, a counselor educator who supervises graduate students at East Tennessee State University’s (ETSU’s) on-campus community counseling clinic. There is also the trauma of separation. Bitter says several students he supervises are counseling young clients who are in foster care or being raised by grandparents because their parents are incarcerated or struggling with addiction.

“[In] family therapy these days, in our area, we’re not working so much with children and families because they are structurally misaligned or have difficulty with psychiatric disorders. We are much more working with trauma and working with families to be more effective in how they raise children,” says Bitter, a professor of counseling and human services who specializes in family counseling and the Adlerian method. “When there’s been a rupture in attachment issues, helping clients [relearn attachment] in a compassionate way is hard. The people who have been traumatized are way outside the natural bond.”

Kristy A. Brumfield, an LPC at a group practice in Philadelphia, finds that working with families in groups can often help those who are struggling with transitions such as the arrival of a new baby, a move, or the particulars of co-parenting after a divorce.

Transition challenges can also crop up naturally as families grow and age, Benoit adds. For example, families may find that formerly established patterns that used to work well around the areas of discipline and boundaries begin to cause friction as children turn into teenagers. Professional counselors can serve as valuable sources of support and guidance as families take a step back and examine the patterns within their systems, says Benoit, who specializes in relational work with individuals, couples and families across the life span.

“Working through developmental things is huge [with families], as well as attachment and focusing on relationship patterns,” Benoit says. “Also transition points. Anytime there’s an expansion or contraction of a family system, that’s when people often seek help. It can be a birth, a death, a divorce or a blending of a family. Sometimes, what was working before is no longer working.”

Getting together

The term “family counseling” may invoke thoughts of the traditional nuclear family, with juvenile children and parents sitting together and talking with a clinician. This arrangement can and does happen, but family counseling also encompasses groupings beyond the immediate or traditional family unit. It can involve any constellation of family members willing to participate who are relevant to or involved in the family’s presenting issue and who could benefit from work on communication patterns and relationship issues.

When involving multiple people in counseling sessions, counselors must first identify who the client is and what that entails, including privacy issues. In some cases, the individual who first sought counseling will be the client; in others, a couple or the entire family group will be the client. (Find out more about this essential conversation in the 2014 ACA Code of Ethics, including Standards A.8. and B.4.b., at counseling.org/knowledge-center/ethics/code-of-ethics-resources.)

Benoit says she always begins counseling with family groups by fully explaining and defining the therapy relationship and letting the family decide if they would be comfortable with a group format. “I like to put the ball in the client’s court and give them a chance to decide if this modality feels right and will address what they want it to in counseling,” says Benoit, a member of the American Counseling Association.

Recently, Benoit received a call from a couple seeking counseling for their twin teenagers struggling with stress related to being in high school. The twins were both gifted and very bright. Benoit first met with the parents, without the twins, to learn more about the situation and to explore the family dynamics. She quickly saw that the family’s relationship was strong and healthy, which meant that wasn’t the issue of concern. Instead, the twins needed space to process some complicated emotions — feeling close and supportive of each other and yet sometimes simultaneously competitive with each other in academics, sports and extracurricular activities.

When Benoit had her first session with the twins, she talked over several options with them: individual work with different counselors, seeing her together for sessions, or having the entire family involved in counseling. Benoit stressed that if the twins decided to come to her together for therapy, they would need to stay together for sessions. She gave the twins time between their first and second sessions to think it over.

“Because of the uniqueness [of their situation] and how connected they were to each other, they felt it was most appropriate to be seen together,” Benoit recalls. “Ultimately, they decided that this felt like the best option [for them].”

Benoit emphasizes that this process will look different for each client and must be tailored to fit each client’s needs and presenting issues. For example, she has another set of juvenile siblings on her caseload who see her separately as individual clients. Their presenting issues are very different, and their counseling work does not overlap, so individual sessions work best for them, she explains.

The symptom carrier

Ehinger owns a group family counseling practice with two locations in Connecticut. Her staff of therapists is able to collaborate and co-treat family groupings and individuals within families who need counseling on separate issues simultaneously.

Frequently, in families, there is one identified person who is symptomatic and causes the family to seek counseling, such as a teenager with an eating disorder or a child with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Even so, the problem often runs deeper and affects the entire family. “The idea is that one person is holding the symptoms, but it’s not the only problem within the family system,” says Ehinger, an ACA member with a doctorate in counseling education and supervision.

This is especially common when couples have an unhealthy relationship or are going through a divorce, she says. Their child may be the one who is symptomatic, but the issue is rooted in the parents. “The child may be afraid to go to elementary school and has a lot of anxiety. The parents have talked with the school and find that it’s not anything academic, and the child is not being bullied,” Ehinger says. “Then we might find out from the parents that the father moved out two months ago, there’s a lot of fighting and there are lawyers involved. They may say, ‘We’re not fighting in front of the kids.’ [But] whether they’re fighting in front of the kids or not, this child is absorbing the energy and knows there’s something going on.”

Ehinger and a colleague at her practice co-treated a family in which a teenage son was identified as symptomatic. The parents initially sought counseling for the 16-year-old because they said he was grumpy and defiant, staying out past curfew, skipping classes and experimenting with substance use.

The teenage son started individual counseling with a male clinician at Ehinger’s practice. Because the practice specializes in family systems issues, the clinician viewed the teen’s troubles from a systems perspective and soon uncovered a larger challenge. The answers the teen gave to questions about his family life indicated there was tension in the home and that his parents were having trouble.

The family also had a daughter who was a freshman in college. When she came home for holiday break, she refused to return to school and started displaying defiant behavior and some of the other symptoms her brother had shown. As these challenges unfolded, Ehinger began working with the parents, while her colleague worked with their children. Sometimes they would all convene for sessions together, with four family members and two clinicians in the same room.

Ehinger’s conversations with the parents in counseling revealed that the couple had experienced an issue with infertility and that both of their children were adopted. The couple hadn’t resolved their grief over their infertility, and that contributed to them struggling with their adopted children gaining their independence and beginning to “launch” from home, Ehinger says.

Within a few months, the symptomatic teenager was no longer “the problem” — the couple’s marriage was, Ehinger says. The son’s symptoms dissipated as counseling helped him find autonomy, and he subsequently stopped acting out as often.

This family’s presenting issue was due to problems with attachment, Ehinger explains. “The parents hadn’t really grieved the loss of having the ability to have their own children. They were extremely sensitive to being ‘perfect’ parents. They felt they would be failures if they weren’t perfect parents to these adopted kids and were pointing fingers at each other out of frustration.”

The issue was exacerbated, Ehinger recalls, because the parents had large extended families with lots of children, so they felt inadequate and insufficient compared with their relatives.

Ehinger worked with the mother to boost her self-esteem and process her infertility grief in individual sessions. With the couple, Ehinger also focused on grief processing, as well as finding safety within their relationship. They talked about “how to be intentional with each other, how to relate to each other, what their idea of marriage is, and how they [could] be more intentional to get to that,” she says. She also provided psychoeducation on why transitions, including child development during the teenage years, are so hard for families.

Ehinger often uses narrative therapy with families, and in this case, it was particularly helpful. In this family, the narrative was that the husband and wife felt like “bad parents,” the son was the “troublemaker,” and the daughter had always been the “good one,” although she later struggled when she came home from college.

“We worked to change that story: The parents were not bad but hypervigilant. We taught them about attachment, normal teenage rebellion and helped them recreate the narrative of their family,” Ehinger says. “We talked about roles: How did [the son] get the role of the troublemaker? Did he want to keep it? Did he ask for it? Who would resist him shedding that role? What other role could he [and other family members] become?”

Uncovering patterns

Benoit finds structural family therapy and experiential family therapy helpful in her work with family clients. Both modalities focus on interaction patterns within family groups.

“A family’s whole systemic interaction pattern can be shifted by changing small behaviors. That’s why it’s so important to identify those patterns,” says Benoit, a full-time faculty member teaching online at Southern New Hampshire University.

One way counselors can encourage families to shift long-held and unhealthy patterns is to raise family members’ awareness of the roles they play within the system. “For example, sometimes one member will be the family’s harmonizer, smoothing over all conflict,” Benoit says. “Those roles often dictate how members interact in day-to-day interactions, but also during conflicts and transitions. Understanding the roles that are played and how those influence interactions can help challenge family members to explore alternatives and to try on new roles as their family systems grow and change over time.”

Benoit’s focus on patterns involves careful listening and close observation of the ways that family members talk and interact, both verbally and nonverbally, in sessions. This includes body language as well as the tone and subtext of what is said verbally. “I’m taking it all in,” she says.

Perhaps the family members always sit in the same order for each session, for example, or one child always sits with one parent and distances themselves from the other, or the children always look at their mother before saying anything. Often, families don’t even realize that these patterns are happening or that there might be deeper meaning behind them, Benoit says.

Her method is to gently point these patterns out to the family, framed by curiosity. Her approach doesn’t paint the behaviors necessarily as being bad, but rather just as something to ask about and gather more information on.

“With family counseling, families are coming to us to get information and feedback, so pointing out patterns can help,” Benoit says. “Over time, I might point [a pattern] out to the family and say, ‘This is what I’m seeing. Help me understand where this comes from, and how it helps in your relationship. … Tell me about what this behavior means to your family.’”

For example, a child may always sit between his mother and stepfather in session. What might this symbolize? Is it a physical representation of the bridge-building role the child plays in the family? Benoit would bring up this observation, framing it as a question or a “tell me more” prompt.

“It’s something to explore. It doesn’t always mean something, but it’s worth asking,” she says. “And I get it wrong all the time. Sometimes the family will say, ‘Gosh, no!’ and then it just helps me to learn more information” about the family system.

Behavior patterns within families can also be rooted in culture or context, Benoit adds. For example, a young child who always defers to his or her parents or waits to speak in counseling sessions can be exhibiting a sign of respect taught within the family or culture.

Uncovering patterns and the meanings behind them demands that practitioners be present and focused on each moment in session. It also requires keeping a curious mindset, Benoit says. “One of the reasons I love relationship counseling so much is that instead of working with one person, you’re working with multiple people. But more importantly, you’re working on the space between people,” she says. “It’s really dynamic and powerful work.”

Processing trauma

Bitter counsels clients with the internship and practicum students he supervises at ETSU’s on-campus counseling clinic, which offers free services to members of the community, many of whom have minimal or no health insurance coverage. Bitter says he starts thinking about other family members who could be involved in counseling work within the first session with a client. From his perspective, all issues that bring clients to counseling are family issues in one way or another.

“Everything is a family issue,” says Bitter, who will be publishing a third edition of his book, Theory and Practice of Couples and Family Counseling, with ACA this fall. “Instead of family or couples [counseling], a broader term might be relational counseling. From the moment we are born, we are in a relationship. We can’t survive without them.”

Bitter recalls one client whom he has counseled for multiple years (beginning when the client was 14), with various counseling interns also being involved in one-semester intervals. Initially, the client’s aunt contacted ETSU’s counseling center to request help for her nephew.

The client’s mother struggled with addiction and had been married four times, in addition to having multiple other relationships, all of which had been immersed in drug culture. The youth — the second of his mother’s five sons — had seen “a constant stream in his young life of drug dealers and men with whom his mother was having relationships,” Bitter says. By the time the boy was 5 or 6, he had taken on the role of unofficial parent and caretaker for his younger brothers. He would get them up and dressed in the mornings and make sure they had food to eat, and he would clean the house.

When he was 9, the boy and his older brother went to live with their father, who had alcoholism. There, the client also took on caretaking tasks for his brother and, to an extent, his father. Bitter notes that the boy would have to ask his father repeatedly for money to buy food for the household.

At one point, the youth called his aunt and asked if he could stay with her. The aunt took him in and called the ETSU counseling center for help. Initially, Bitter saw the teen as an individual client (at the teen’s request). But in sessions, the youth would claim that he was “fine” and never bring up anything to talk about.

“The trauma and neglect in this boy’s life led him to be depressed but also led him to be very secretive. He had a very, very hard time telling me what was going on in his life,” recalls Bitter, an ACA member. “When you grow up being a little boy who has to take care of everyone else, you have to present a really good face to the rest of the world and learn to act as if everything is fine, until it is not.”

Eventually, Bitter worked with the youth to involve his aunt and grandmother — the most supportive family members in the client’s life — in counseling sessions. In their work together, Bitter focused on ways to rebuild the teen’s broken family while removing the caretaking role he had shouldered for so many years. “I asked the adults to be a family, and the aunt and grandmother were willing to do that,” Bitter says.

A year and a half later, counseling began to include a focus on the teenager transitioning from living with his aunt to moving back in with his father, who had worked to get sober and secured a job as a landscaper. “The counseling center helped with that transition and rekindled relationship and also reversed the pattern of trauma [in the family],” Bitter says. “We helped him to live as a child again and rely on the adults in his life. Now he has an aunt, grandmother and father who are functionally caring for him.”

The teen will soon turn 17. He’s doing well but is “still careful and cautious in relationships,” Bitter says. “He has two good friends and can’t really handle more than that.”

The teen and family’s recovery came “after two years of [counselors] constantly seeing this family, encouraging them and literally teaching them how to talk to each other, helping them with how to respond to each other,” Bitter says.

Effective parenting

In addition to working through unresolved trauma, much of what Bitter focuses on with families in counseling is changing unhealthy parenting patterns. Parents often come to the counseling clinic at their wits’ end because of behavior problems with their children.

The world has changed dramatically over the past century, but parenting styles, on the whole, have not, Bitter contends. With what counselors know about attachment and the benefits of using boundaries rather than punishment with children, practitioners are well-equipped to offer psychoeducation to parents who are struggling, he says.

“The majority of people parenting today, when we’re at our best, we sometimes parent better than our parents did, but when we’re at our worst, we all parent at about the same level our parents did — and we have to assume they did the same thing,” Bitter says. “Most of parenting is teaching [clients] how to form really good bonds with children and help them grow and develop.”

Bitter says a counselor’s role is to offer guidance rather than explicit instructions or commands to parents. “I wait for the client to say what they did and then ask, ‘Did that work for you? How did it go?’ If you had to spank your child [multiple] times per week, then it’s not working. Let’s talk about what might work [instead].”

Counseling can also normalize parents’ challenges, sending the message that they aren’t alone in their struggles. “They get to see that they’re like every other family — if you have children, you’re going to make a mistake every day,” Bitter says. “Often, parents are doing a pretty good job but just need [extra] help. But those who are dealing with trauma, or dealing with a bond between a child and parent that has to be reconnected, that takes some time and patience.”

Bitter draws on a number of methods to help parents, including Jane Nelsen’s positive discipline approach, Michael Popkin’s active parenting system, the Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (STEP) program, and James Lehman’s Total Transformation trainings for parents. However, Bitter emphasizes the “natural consequences” concept when it comes to child discipline.

As a child, Bitter says he hated Brussels sprouts, but his father loved them, so the pungent vegetable often appeared on the family dinner table. This circumstance frequently escalated into verbal battles, with his father insisting that Bitter was going to eat Brussels sprouts and Bitter insisting otherwise. Use of the natural consequences philosophy can circumvent such parent-child power struggles.

“Now we know that if parents serve a variety of things and a balanced diet, over time a child will make good choices,” Bitter says. “If you make [healthy] food available, a child will eat it. I recommend that parents model good eating habits but not get into fights over what the child is or isn’t eating. [When a child refuses to eat something], say ‘OK, don’t eat that.’ The natural consequence is that the child will get hungry. If they say, ‘I’m not eating breakfast’ [with the rest of the family], a parent should say, ‘OK.’ The child will come back at 10 a.m. and say, ‘I’m hungry.’ The parent can respond [by saying], ‘OK, lunch is served at noon, and you’ll make it until then.’”

If these types of patterns are repeated often enough, children will learn from their experiences and realize the natural consequences of their choices, Bitter points out.

He gives another example: Perhaps a mother who is struggling with a defiant adolescent finds that the child pushes back on her instructions to come out of the mall to be picked up at 3 p.m., despite having been dropped off for shopping with friends hours earlier. Bitter says he would ask the client, “What would happen if at 3 p.m. [when the child isn’t there], you just pressed on the gas in your car and drove away?” When the child calls to ask why Mom isn’t there to pick him or her up, she can calmly explain that she was there at 3 p.m. but the child wasn’t. Now, Mom has other things to do but will return to get the child when she can, Bitter says.

The crux of this method is for parents to learn to control themselves, Bitter says. Once they learn and find control, their child (or children) will follow.

“This is not difficult stuff. It’s hard to put into practice but easy to understand. Part of this is just helping couples and families get there,” Bitter says. “It takes patience on the part of the parent. The parents we are seeing are extremely frustrated because what they’re doing isn’t working. … If you put these [concepts] into practice, [parents] will have a more harmonious life with their children. It’s just a question of getting started.”

Playing together

Brumfield is a registered play therapy supervisor and has used play therapy not only with children, but with adults and families, for 18 years. While play therapy with children is mostly unguided, Brumfield provides prompts and gentle guidance for the adults and families on her caseload, often in the form of games and activities. This can include asking a family to create a puppet show or to play out a story using puppets in session. Among the many benefits of this approach, Brumfield says, is helping adults “reconnect to the playful parts of themselves.”

Brumfield, a member of ACA, also uses music and art in her work with families. For instance, she might ask family members to draw their answer to a counseling prompt. Or she’ll pass out rhythm instruments and have the young children beat a pattern, while the parents are encouraged to add to it or to repeat it back to the children on their own instruments.

Observing how the family interacts during these activities tells Brumfield a lot about the relationships, patterns and roles within the family. For example, is one person dominant and leading the entire plan for the family puppet show? Or does everyone work on drawing on their own, almost as if no one else were in the room? “While watching them interact, I see the gaps and places where the family might grow,” explains Brumfield, who is also a counselor educator at Immaculata University in Pennsylvania.

In addition to in-session activities, Brumfield encourages families to make time for activities together at home. These can run the gamut from a game of hide-and-seek or a family bike ride to board games and puzzles. She recommends games that encourage conversation and that are cooperative rather than competitive. One of her personal favorites is the Ungame, a board game that directs players to answer various questions to encourage conversation but has no winner. Similarly, families can use a conversational card deck — a number of which are available online — to spark healthy discussion at mealtimes.

When it comes to “assigning” families activities to do outside of session, Brumfield likes to have each family member think of three things they would like to do together. “Children often have ideas readily, and the children are really the ones teaching the parents. I ask the parents to think of their own childhood and what they enjoyed or things they wished they were able to do when they were a child,” Brumfield says. “The primary goal is connection and helping them be more cohesive and work together.”

Boosting family connection typically involves taking a break from technology, Brumfield adds. She often requests that clients try to unplug during family activities. An exception is when technology prompts bonding, such as when a teenager invites his or her parent to play a nonviolent video game together.

Playful activity — inside and outside of counseling sessions — helps families to be less guarded with one another, Brumfield notes. It also boosts communication, joy and vulnerability. Parents might feel silly at first, and that’s a good thing, Brumfield asserts. She reassures parents that letting their guard down to play does not lessen their authority or diminish boundaries.

“When family members are more vulnerable, they’re more able to be seen. It can increase [the family’s] understanding of one another,” Brumfield says. “The children can see their parents differently — as more human. The parents are able to feel reconnected and able to have fun with their children, which can help balance more challenging times for families. … For younger children, mastery can be learned. It can be a confidence boost to be able to participate and learn to be a part of their family. For parents, they’re able to see the things that their children are capable of. Parents often want to do everything for a child, [and play] helps them discover what they can do for themselves.”

Brumfield encourages counselor practitioners to remember the power of play, regardless of whether they specialize in play therapy. “We all — counselors and clients alike — need to be connected with the playful parts of ourselves,” she says. “Remember the importance of humor in our work. It can even be a form of self-care. Think of play as a way to release, stay centered and help in other facets of life.”

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Families and technology

Heather Ehinger, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Connecticut, says conflict over technology use comes up over and over again in her work with families.

This includes fighting between parents and children (and among couples) about which technology is being used and how often. In addition, a couple may have differing views over the age at which their children should have access to technology (such as their own cellphone) or whether they should be allowed to have a computer or video game system in their bedroom.

The conflict that arises over one or more family members’ use — or abuse — of technology can be a flashpoint or an indicator of deeper issues. Technology isn’t necessarily what brings a family in to counseling, Ehinger says, but it’s often a contributor to their presenting issue.

“Technology is not the problem exactly, but it is part of the problem. It feeds into authority issues and discipline,” Ehinger says. “Technology is like a thorn in the family’s side, but it actually turns into the lens through which we see whether the family is functioning or not.”

Ehinger worked with one family who had a son in fourth grade. He was acting out at home, having tantrums and pushing back against boundaries with his mother, who was a stay-at-home mom. He wanted to play Fortnite all the time and would sneak his mother’s cell phone away from her to do so. She would find her son upstairs, still in his pajamas, playing the online video game when it was time to leave for school in the mornings.

This was partly a problem of overstimulation and obsession on the son’s part, but there was also a disconnect on the part of the mother, Ehinger says. Sometimes, disagreements over technology use are generational. In this case, the mother didn’t realize that her son was using the game as a way to socialize and communicate with peers. Adding to her frustration was the fact that she had previously worked in a corporate environment and was used to people listening to her, Ehinger observes. Now, as a stay-at-home mom, she was locked in a battle of wits with her young son.

When it comes to addressing issues of technology use, Ehinger says that psychoeducation about family roles and setting boundaries can be particularly helpful for families in counseling. She often talks with parents about setting limits, taking televisions out of children’s bedrooms, and establishing regular “no tech” nights, when the home’s Wi-Fi is switched off for the evening, to spend time together as a family.

Ehinger also moderates conversations with couples in counseling to get them on the same page regarding their family’s technology use.

“Often, it turns out to be a couple’s problem,” Ehinger says. “They need to define roles when it comes to discipline and boundary-setting — which is all affected by their family of origin. They have to create an ‘our way’ [instead of ‘my way’] and stop bickering and fighting with each other.”

 

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Contact the counselors interviewed for this article:

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Find out more about family counseling from the International Association of Marriage and Family Counselors, a division of ACA, at iamfconline.org.

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Bethany Bray is a senior writer and social media coordinator for Counseling Today. Contact her at bbray@counseling.org.

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Opinions expressed and statements made in articles appearing on CT Online should not be assumed to represent the opinions of the editors or policies of the American Counseling Association.

Stepping up to the challenge

By Lindsey Phillips May 29, 2019

Stepfamilies are complex and feature unique differences, yet on the surface, there may be little to distinguish them from “traditional” families. In fact, as Joshua Gold, a professor in the counseling education program at the University of South Carolina, points out, some counselors don’t necessarily think to ask if they are working with a stepfamily or blended family.

But perhaps they should. According to a 2010 Pew Research Center report, more than 40% of American adults have at least one step relative — a stepparent, a step- or half-sibling or a stepchild — in their family. Gold points out that of the eight most recent U.S. presidents, four (Obama, Clinton, Reagan and Ford) were part of stepfamilies.

“Often for counselors, it gets overwhelming to think about working with stepfamilies because it does look like so many moving parts,” says Jayna Haney, a licensed professional counselor (LPC) in private practice at the Wellness Collective and at Red Dun Ranch in Texas. “But what is also true is that stepfamilies [tend to] have similar problems.”

According to Institute for Stepfamily Education Director Patricia Papernow in her 2017 Family Process article “Clinical Guidelines for Working With Stepfamilies,” stepfamilies face five
major challenges:

1) Insider/outsider positions

2) Children struggling with losses, loyalty binds and change

3) Parenting issues and discipline

4) Building a new family culture while navigating previously established family cultures

5) Dealing with ex-spouses and other parents outside the household

Normalizing stepfamily dynamics

Stepfamilies often assume that something is wrong with them if the family isn’t working well, so counselors should reassure these clients that crisis and change are normal in stepfamily life, says Haney, the founder of the Bridge Across for Single Parents and Stepfamilies. She will often tell clients, “It’s not you. It’s your situation.”

One tool that Haney uses to educate clients about the challenges of stepfamily dynamics is called the stepfamily triangle. She draws a triangle, and at the top she writes in the name of the biological parent. She adds the name of the stepparent in the bottom right corner of the triangle and the name of the biological children in the bottom left corner. Then she explains how the biological parent and biological children have three bonds — emotional, biological and legal — and each bond is as old as the children are. Haney draws three lines to represent these bonds on the side of the triangle that connects the biological parent and biological children. The biological parent and stepparent have an emotional bond and a legal bond (if they are married), so Haney adds the lines connecting them. The stepparent and stepchildren have only an emotional bond (one that is only as old as their relationship) connecting them, which Haney illustrates with one line at the bottom of the triangle.

“So, when stepfamily couples are confused or frustrated because it feels like the family dynamics aren’t squaring up, it’s because they’re not,” says Haney, a member of the American Counseling Association. To illustrate her point, she’ll often put her hands together in the shape of a triangle and tip it over to the left because all of the weight is with the biological parent and child. She has found this visual helps families understand the dynamics and challenges that stepfamilies often face. 

Gold, author of Stepping In, Stepping Out: Creating Stepfamily Rhythm and editor of the newly released book Intervening for Stepfamily Success: One Case, Multiple Perspectives (both published by ACA), also uses education as a means of normalizing stepfamilies’ experiences. Rather than directly asking stepfamilies whether a specific issue affects them, he provides general information about challenges that stepfamilies often face to see if anything resonates with them. He often starts counseling sessions by drawing two large circles — one for the clients’ lived experiences and the other for common stepfamily issues based on his professional knowledge. For example, in his circle, Gold may write that some stepfamilies deal with gendered expectations, such as assuming the stepmother will automatically be nurturing with the children or expecting the stepfather to be the disciplinarian. If the clients say they have experienced that issue, Gold will add it to their circle. 

Both Gold and Pat Skinner, an LPC in private practice in Denver, agree that the schools offer one effective avenue for easily reaching stepfamilies and helping normalize their experiences. Gold recommends that school counselors hold stepfamily groups. These groups can be promoted in the school handbook given to parents at the beginning of the year.

Skinner, an ACA member who specializes in working with stepfamilies, thinks that holding stepfamily groups or classes at schools helps address some of the time and financial obstacles that these families might otherwise face in getting assistance. She also says that groups allow stepfamilies to hear stories similar to their own, helping them realize that they are not alone in their experiences.

Integrating multiple perspectives 

Working with stepfamilies means having multiple voices and perspectives in each counseling session, which can further complicate the process. “The more complex the situation, the more flexible you need to be,” says Gold, a member of ACA and the International Association of Marriage and Family Counselors (IAMFC), a division of ACA. “If I’m dealing with one client, I’m trying to meet one client’s expectations. If I’m dealing with five, I now have five sets of expectations.”

“It takes more skill and more orientation as a clinician to figure out how to integrate all these different voices,” he continues. “Most conflict is founded in the notion that it’s an either/or situation. Either you’re right or I’m right.”

Gold, a contributing editorial board member of IAMFC’s The Family Journal, advises counselors to help stepfamilies switch to a both/and mindset so that situations won’t become win-or-lose propositions. For example, rather than focusing on how the kids from one family ate yogurt and cereal for breakfast and the other family ate eggs, the new stepfamily could include both breakfast options.

Haney, who specializes in high-conflict situations, parental alienation and stepfamilies, has developed an integrated family protocol in which she spends three to four family sessions discussing how to convert high-conflict tendencies into something productive. High conflict involves rigid thinking, unmanaged emotions, extreme behaviors and blaming others. She advises stepfamilies to do the opposite: engage in flexible thinking, manage their emotions, moderate their behaviors and own their actions.

In the first session, Haney always discusses flexible thinking. She puts eight or nine items with various textures (such as slime, play dough, Kinetic Sand, putty and therapy dough) on trays and passes them around. Each family member plays with the items and discusses how the items feel. Haney then asks what all the materials have in common. Someone typically responds that all the items can be mushed or smashed. Haney points out that no matter what the family members do to the items, the materials remain flexible. To emphasize this point, she asks the stepfamily to consider what would happen if they punched slime versus punching a wooden box. The answer: Only the wooden box would break.

Haney connects this exercise to the importance of being flexible in one’s thinking and explains that all people and situations have some good and some not so good features. With this new perspective, she asks each family member to tell her one thing that they like about their other family members.

Next, they take turns telling Haney one thing that drives them a little crazy about their family. For example, a family member may say that they don’t like it when everyone is yelling or how one of the parents is constantly asking the children how they are doing. Haney purposely uses the phrase “drives you a little crazy” because she finds it helps clients think of small problems, not big ones. She also advises counselors against asking clients what they wish were different because that is often counterproductive, she says.

When a stepfamily walks into Darrick Tovar-Murray’s office, he observes where each family member sits and how they communicate with each other. Take for example a session with Jim (the custodial parent), Jeff (the stepparent) and James (the child). Tovar-Murray will call attention to the way the family is arranged in the room: “James, why did you sit closer to Jim than to Jeff? Help me to understand what you make of the way … the family is sitting in the room right now.”

Tovar-Murray, an associate professor of counseling at DePaul University, also points out subtle verbal and nonverbal communication: “Jim, when you said James is not doing well in school, your voice went up, and at that moment, James turned his back to you. Can you tell me what James may be feeling right now?” Teaching stepfamilies effective communication skills helps them to understand one another’s experiences and emotions, says Tovar-Murray, a member of ACA.

Haney encourages clients to explore the narratives they are telling themselves about certain situations while simultaneously accepting that everyone has their own perspective on those situations. For example, if a stepmother says that her husband is always looking at his phone and waiting for his ex-wife to call, the counselor can say, “I understand that bothers you. What’s the story you are telling yourself?”

The stepmother might say she feels like the ex-wife is still more important to her husband than she is. The husband says he’s simply concerned that he’ll miss a phone call from his children. To which the stepmother responds, “I don’t want you to miss a phone call from your children. I just feel like you’re always looking at your phone when we’re out at dinner.” The couple can then make an agreement for the husband to either put his phone away for an hour or call his children before going out to dinner.

Recently, Haney had a stepmother come in by herself because her 25-year-old stepdaughter was constantly fighting with or upset with her and her husband. Haney worked with the stepmother to help her understand that she could not control the adult child’s behavior — but she could control how she reframed the situation and responded to the stepdaughter. With Haney’s guidance, the stepmother changed her perspective and learned new skills so she would no longer get surprised, upset or disappointed when the stepdaughter turned argumentative.

“The hardest part in relationships is to realize the amount of power you have or don’t have to make change,” Gold says. “You have endless power to make change in self. You have less power to make change in others. And, sometimes, part of being in a relationship means you accept things you don’t really like.”

Establishing stepfamily structure

Haney often begins counseling with the stepcouple first because she believes the partnering piece needs to be in place before other issues can be addressed effectively. “If the stepfamily couple can create the structure within their relationship and they can get on the same page with some of these issues, the kids fall into line,” she says.

Stepcouples often face challenges with establishing and maintaining clear parenting roles. In fact, a primary area of conflict for stepfamilies is the parent–child relationship, Haney notes.

The stepcouple need to agree on what they want to teach their children and what the family rules are in the home, she continues. For instance, if the stepmother thinks the children should stop using their smartphones at night and tries to enforce the rule without the biological father’s support, it will cause problems. In such situations, Haney often finds that the biological parent agrees with the overarching rule; the disagreement is in the details. Perhaps the father thinks that 8 is too early to restrict phone use and that 10 would be a better time.

“The moment that you allow the biology to divide, then the house is really two different houses,” Gold says. “So, there’s got to be a set of rules for the house.”

Haney suggests that stepfamilies establish basic rules about bedtime, homework and family dinners. Every family member should also have his or her own space in the house, she says. For example, one person shouldn’t sleep on the couch while the others have their own bed.

Haney believes that the biological parent needs to parent, and the stepparent needs to let that happen. Gold agrees. The stepcouple should figure out the household rules, and then the biological parent should present those rules to the family, he says. Then, both parents can enforce those rules.

If a couple disagree on this point, Haney draws the stepfamily triangle so they can visualize the dynamics. This can help the stepparent realize that he or she may have been overstepping. Haney then asks, “What does the family need to do to make the triangle stay upright?”

First, the partners must be on the same page and create a supportive relationship in which they respect each other’s experiences and perspectives, Haney says. Sometimes, stepparents will need to take a step back, she adds. Haney tells stepparents, “When you assert yourself as a biological parent when you are not … you’re putting a target on your chest because you will always be the bad guy. You will never win.” The biological parent’s job is to protect the stepparent by doing the parenting, she stresses.

Second, Haney says, stepparents have to strengthen their relationship with the stepchildren, but they must also accept that it will take time. One activity she uses to help with this is the emotional bank account. When stepparents marry or move in with the biological parent, they assume a parenting role, she explains. Because biological parents already have a strong emotional, legal and biological bond with their children, they can discipline, set boundaries for, and offer advice and make comments to their children, Haney says. However, stepparents don’t have this emotional connection yet, so with every negative action (e.g., punishing, yelling, making comments, rolling eyes), they make a withdrawal from the emotional bank account with the child, she continues. “It’s not one deposit and one withdrawal,” she points out. “It’s one deposit, but for every negative nonverbal or negative interaction, it’s five withdrawals.”

Haney often helps stepparents realize that they are depleting this emotional bank account faster than they recognize. In such cases, they need to stop making withdrawals and start making deposits. Recently, one of Haney’s clients, a stepfather, was having a difficult time with his 14-year-old stepdaughter. He expected a lot of her and often critiqued what she did. For example, he would point out that he often needed to remind her to take out the trash and even made comments about the way she tied the garbage bag rather than thanking her for her efforts. Haney encouraged him to start making deposits in his stepdaughter’s emotional bank account by giving her compliments, texting that he was proud of her, or saying that he noticed how hard she had been working. When he followed through, their relationship took a 180-degree turn within a week’s time, Haney says.   

When a biological parent finds a new partner, the children are often expected to show love and respect for that new partner right away, Skinner says. However, it’s important to remind stepfamilies that neither children nor adults love immediately. It takes time.

In addition, the child’s developmental stage can affect the degree to which the stepfamily bonds. If children are approaching or into adolescence when the stepfamily forms, they may never feel connected to the stepfamily unit because they are focused on forming their
own separate identities at that point, Gold notes.

In her stepfamily, Haney and her husband developed a plan to handle the stresses and problems they faced. She encourages couples to follow a similar plan, which includes:

  • Talking to and reassuring each other that things will be OK
  • Creating daily habits that provide a sense of connection and support
  • Going out on dates
  • Limiting how much time they discuss children, stepchildren and exes

Haney also reminds clients to laugh. She and her husband found watching a daily episode of Seinfeld helpful during the difficult early part of their stepfamily’s life.

“A lot of times with stepfamilies, you’re sacrificing the me for the we,” Haney says. “If the couple … is willing to make these changes for each other, then it can be a really powerful experience.” In addition, the behavior of asking for help, finding solutions and making changes serves as a powerful model for the children, she says.

Focus on the solution, not the problem

“I think the big mistake that counselors make is they try to start with the problem,” Haney says about counseling stepfamilies. Often, stepfamily couples come in experiencing so much angst, frustration and confusion, they don’t know where to begin. If the counselor asks the couple to talk about their problems and feelings, the couple and the counselor all become problem saturated and risk becoming overwhelmed, she says. 

To avoid this, Haney starts sessions with a basic genogram, which provides her with all the names and connections between the family members. She uses colored markers and construction paper, drawing a circle for each woman and a square for each man in the family, including the stepfamily couple, the ex-partners and the children. Haney then asks the stepcouple’s ages and living arrangements, when the couple first met and when they started dating, and she adds that information to the genogram. For those who are married, she will also ask if they lived together before they got married, when they got married and how long they have been married. Finally, she asks about the most serious relationship that each of the partners had before they got involved with each other.

Next, she draws smaller circles and squares for the ex-spouses or ex-partners and asks similar questions such as age, length of time together, when they separated and if they have children together. If they do have children together, Haney connects the ex and adds in the children’s names and ages, as well as how the parents split their time with the children and how involved each one is with the children.

Haney always ends this exercise by asking, “Is there anybody else that we’re going to be talking about today or who is creating challenges in your stepfamily life?” By asking this question, she often discovers other people, such as one of the partner’s siblings, a grandparent or even the ex-spouse’s new partner, who are adding to the stepfamily’s problems.

In addition to serving as a reference tool that counselors can use throughout their work with the stepfamily, the genogram provides structure to the session. “Structure is a big part of doing a successful stepfamily session,” Haney says. “[It’s] knowing what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it so that you don’t allow [the session] to become problem saturated.”

Tovar-Murray uses a narrative approach to separate the family from the problem. For example, if a child feels divided between family members, he would have the family name the problem and then ask, “When did the sense of divided loyalty enter your family system? How has it caused you to think you are not a family who can be a cohesive unit? What would your future look like if divided loyalty were no longer present and you were operating as a family unit?” This approach encourages the family to fight together against the problem rather than letting it divide them, he explains.

To strengthen stepfamily cohesion, counselors can also ask family members to describe activities that might make them feel more connected and then encourage them to carve out time over the next week to engage in those activities, Tovar-Murray suggests. “We’re always looking for those unique outcomes, and those are the times in which the stepfamilies are not being saturated and influenced by whatever the problem is,” he says.

Separating the family from the problem is also helpful when there is resistance to the new family structure, such as when one of the partners resists embracing or blending two racial or ethnic identities. For example, in a household with a Latinx stepfather and an African American biological father, the biological father might say, “Maintaining my African American identity is extremely important, and I’m not giving that up. I’m going to see this as an African American family.”

“That resistance piece is just showing [the counselor] how important that identity is,” Tovar-Murray says. With this situation, the counselor could attempt to separate the family system from the resistance piece and reframe it. For example, the counselor could respond, “I can see that you have a strong sense of pride in being African American. Now, I also wonder how you can have that same sense of pride in the relationship that you just formed.”

The counselor can help the family reframe this racial pride and create pride in the new structure the family is developing. Otherwise, the stepfather may feel isolated, which makes cohesion and integration almost impossible, Tovar-Murray says.

Take a step forward

Both Gold and Skinner acknowledge that busy schedules and finances can be big issues for many stepfamilies. As a result, these families often are not looking to engage in long-term counseling.

Gold says that any counseling approach that is more “present-focused” works well with stepfamilies. He often relies on a brief therapy model — six to eight sessions — and finds that most clients will make a commitment to therapy if they know how long it will take. This model also works well with family schedules, he adds.

Counselors “need to remember that a stepfamily couple is going to be less likely to come once a week, every week, for six months,” Haney points out. “So, when [counselors] work with stepfamily couples, [they’re] really doing that solution-focused piece.”

In fact, Haney finds that when stepfamilies come to see her, they have already thought and talked a lot among themselves about the issues they are struggling with, so they want to know what to do. “They know where they are and they know where they want to be, but they do not know how to get there,” she says. Haney doesn’t direct stepfamilies on what to do, but she does help them figure out different paths for getting where they want to be.

After Haney finishes the genogram, she asks the stepcouple directly, “How can I help you today?” Some couples may get to the heart of the matter, whereas others may not have an answer. In those cases, Haney provides the stepfamily with information on the importance of partnering together, the stepfamily triangle and the emotional bank account.

Haney also asks the stepfamily, “What are the two or three things you want to accomplish or work on while you are in counseling?” The family’s answers must be something they have control over, she says. “You don’t have any control over the ex or the stepchild,” she explains. “You do have control over how you respond to the ex. … You do have control over how you respond to the stepchild, how you talk to your partner about the child, and what kind of stepparent or parent you want to be.”

In part because stepfamilies may attend only a few counseling sessions, Haney often spends a longer amount of time in the initial session getting to know the family members, figuring out why they came to counseling and making sure they leave with an action plan. In the initial session, which often lasts up to two hours, she spends approximately 15 minutes on the genogram and 15 minutes educating clients about common stepfamily issues. For the remaining time, she helps families determine two or three things that they want to accomplish.

By the time the family leaves, each family member “need[s] to have something that they’re going to do that’s doable and that they can work on,” Haney says. “Then they leave empowered because they know what to do. [They] leave … educated because you’ve shared with them some insights that help them change their perspective and reframe how it’s working. And … it helps them see their story and their family differently.”

 

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Invisible stepfamilies

The concept of stepfamilies can challenge traditional assumptions of the word family, which often evokes an image of a married father and mother with their biological children. But as Darrick Tovar-Murray, an associate professor of counseling at DePaul University, points out, this image doesn’t account for the diversity found within stepfamilies. In fact, because this assumption doesn’t recognize other types of partnerships or unions, it renders them “invisible,” he says. That’s particularly the case when these families include a noncustodial and custodial parent with at least one child from a previous relationship and encompass multiple racial, ethnic and sexual orientation identities — which he refers to as invisible stepfamilies of color.

“When you look at invisible stepfamilies of color, they tend to come from cohabitating relationships where there isn’t a marriage or legal contract,” Tovar-Murray says. “That legal contract should not be what defines a family.”

As society continues to grow more diverse, counselors will encounter more invisible stepfamilies of color and thus may need to challenge their own views of what family means, Tovar-Murray argues. Counselors also shouldn’t assume that a couple is married, he continues. In addition, asking “How long have you been dating?” implies that the couple’s relationship may not be as close or as integrated as a couple who is married, and that may not match the perspective the clients have of their relationship.

Tovar-Murray also advises counselors not to make assumptions such as thinking that a stepcouple’s decision not to hold hands is related to their lack of affection for each other. Based on their experience of racial/ethnic or sexual orientation microaggressions, many of these couples may engage in this or similar displays of affection only in spaces they consider to be safe. “As counselors, we cannot assume that invisible stepfamilies of color are going to be out in all spaces that they walk in,” he says.

For this reason, Tovar-Murray, an ACA member and co-author of a chapter on blended families of color in the book Intervening for Stepfamily Success, advises counselors to be open and direct about microaggressions. He will often tell clients, “I want to talk about something I think is important. We know that racism exists and sexual orientation microaggressions exists, and I’m wondering if you as a couple or if this family has ever experienced those things.” He also suggests saying, “I know biases exist, and some of the things that may affect a family system like this may even be biases within your own cultural groups. Have you experienced any of those? How have you successfully dealt with those things?”

“The assumption that [counselors] make sometimes is that [they’re] not going to bring [these issues] up because the client didn’t bring it up,” Tovar-Murray says. “But sometimes clients, couples and families may not know that [counseling is] the space [where they] can talk about those things.”

— Lindsey Phillips

 

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Lindsey Phillips is a contributing writer to Counseling Today and a UX content strategist living in Northern Virginia. Contact her at hello@lindseynphillips.com or through her website at lindseynphillips.com.

Letters to the editor: ct@counseling.org

 

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Opinions expressed and statements made in articles appearing on CT Online should not be assumed to represent the opinions of the editors or policies of the American Counseling Association.

Supporting clients through the anxiety and exhaustion of food allergies

By Bethany Bray November 27, 2018

The diagnosis of a food allergy is life-changing, not just for the individual but for those who love and live with that person. In addition to avoiding exposure to certain foods, the condition requires that these families and individuals explain, over and over again, the seriousness of the allergy at schools, restaurants, social gatherings, workplaces, daycare facilities and countless other places.

It can all be exhausting, says Tamara Hubbard, a licensed clinical professional counselor whose son was diagnosed with a peanut allergy six years ago. Families receiving a new allergy diagnosis face steep learning curves that can cause them to worry and to overthink every detail of what their child or other loved one eats or might be exposed to.

“It’s almost like Russian roulette. You don’t know when an [allergic] reaction will happen, even when you take precautions,” Hubbard explains. “There’s a constant level of fear and anxiety at all times in the background that parents and caregivers need help managing.”

Food allergies affect an estimated 4 to 6 percent of children in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Between 1997 and 2007, food allergies increased 18 percent among American children and adolescents younger than 18.

A food allergy reaction sends someone in the United States to the emergency room every three minutes, reports the nonprofit organization Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE).

Counselors can help clients work through the anxiety and other mental health issues that food allergies sometimes exacerbate, but they can also be a source of support simply by serving as a listening ear. Clients may come to a counselor’s office worn out from the self-advocacy and constant vigilance that a food allergy requires, explains Hubbard, who has a private practice in the suburbs of Chicago that specializes in supporting clients (and their families) with food allergies.

With food allergies, there is sometimes “a constant feeling of having to fight in every conversation to get your point across,” she says. “Just being an empathic, listening ear [as a counselor] and wanting to learn, that makes a huge difference in their anxiety level and ability to release tension.”

At the same time, counselors should research and learn about food allergies to become a competent support to clients, Hubbard emphasizes. For example, they should know that an intolerance or sensitivity to a food is very different from a diagnosed allergy.

With a food allergy, the immune system views the allergen — for example, wheat, shellfish or peanuts — as an invader and overreacts whenever it enters the body. Someone who ingests a food that he or she has an intolerance or sensitivity to will experience discomfort but not the potentially life-threatening reaction that comes with an allergy, Hubbard explains.

Counselors who understand the biological and mental health implications of food allergies can help these clients to live fuller lives, Hubbard says. Although the most important thing counselors can do is learn about and understand food allergies, exercising compassion is also essential, she says.

“Sometimes, even medical professionals aren’t good at that part. They send [people] off with an EpiPen and say, ‘Come back in six months.’ In a perfect world, they would send them off with a list of resources for mental health and wellness,” says Hubbard, an American Counseling Association member. “Counselors can play a very important part to fill in that gap, even if it’s just an empathic ear. That is incredibly therapeutic in itself.”

 

Tempering the uncertainty

The anxiety that families and individuals with food allergies often experience is more complex than simply worrying about possible exposure to an allergen, Hubbard says. Anxiety can spike over everything from sending a child to school and worrying that the staff won’t follow allergy-safe protocols to second-guessing whether a food product might contain nuts, even when the label says it doesn’t.

In the United States, companies are required to note on food labeling whether a product contains one or more of the eight most common allergens. These potential allergens are:

  • Milk/dairy
  • Eggs
  • Fin fish (e.g., salmon, flounder, cod)
  • Shellfish (e.g., crab, lobster, shrimp)
  • Tree nuts (e.g., almonds, walnuts, pecans)
  • Peanuts
  • Wheat
  • Soybeans

However, U.S. companies are not required to disclose whether a product is made in a facility or on equipment that is or was exposed to those eight allergens, Hubbard notes.

With that in mind, navigating grocery stores, restaurants and social gatherings involving food can be anxiety-provoking for those with food allergies — and especially for newly diagnosed families, Hubbard says. Some parents react by restricting their child’s activity to reduce the risk of exposure.

Allergy diagnoses are sometimes given after a person has experienced one initial anaphylactic reaction. This can create uncertainty concerning how much of the allergen is too much. For example, is it OK to be near someone else who is eating the food to which the person is allergic?

“There is fear of the unknown: ‘How much of the allergen will it take for my child to react?’ There are different layers to the anxiety, and it’s important [for counselors] to understand each layer,” Hubbard says. “Also, the anxiety affects each member of the family; they will all feel it. There’s a lot to unpack when you are assessing a client who is dealing with food allergies.”

Counselors who understand the complexity of the issue can help clients find balance and equip them with tools to manage the anxiety, Hubbard notes.

“Ultimately, the goal is to help the client — whether it’s the allergic person themselves or a caregiver — assess the risk for every situation they’re going to be in. Is their anxiety based on fact or emotion? We can tell ourselves that everything is unsafe, or we can navigate [the risk] and take precautions,” she says.

 

Finding balance

There is a balance between living in fear and frustration because of food allergies and still enjoying a good quality of life, Hubbard stresses. “Understand that in many cases, when someone is newly diagnosed, especially if it’s a young child, the person or family may be very overwhelmed initially,” she says, “as there can be a steep learning curve when your lifestyle needs to suddenly change due to a food allergy diagnosis. Some people navigate this well, while others need support and guidance. I typically encourage people to remember that it will take time to get used to the diagnosis and gain all of the necessary knowledge to live a well-balanced life between food allergy fears and empowerment. I also encourage those who are newly diagnosed to learn the basics at first and, over time, as they feel ready, branch out to other related food allergy topics, such as potential treatments, research and advocacy.”

Here are some tips for counselors to keep in mind related to food allergies:

> Prepare for an emotional roller-coaster: Food allergies can be life-threatening, so it’s understandable when individuals (or their families) experience strong emotions such as fear, sadness, anger or guilt connected to the diagnosis. Of course, these emotions can eventually lead to becoming overwhelmed or burning out, Hubbard says.

“If a child has a [allergic] reaction, the parents can feel strong emotions of ‘what did I do wrong?’ At the same time, they could have done everything 100 percent right,” Hubbard says. “The reality is that it’s a big deal, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a … crisis every day.”

Equipping clients with coping mechanisms will not only help them manage their own anxiety and strong emotions but will also keep them from transferring those feelings to the child or family member with the allergy, Hubbard says.

Counselors can also help clients work through their feelings of loss concerning what their life (or their child’s life) might have been like without the limitations of a food allergy. For example, they may yearn to eat at a restaurant without having to ask about the establishment’s allergy protocols or to eat lunch with friends in the school cafeteria instead of sitting at a separate table or worrying about what foods they could be exposed to.

“These children [with food allergies] have to grow up a little quicker in some respects. They have to learn to speak up for themselves and make decisions,” Hubbard says. “It’s about managing the feelings and finding ways to help them empower themselves and advocate to come through with some balance.”

> Move toward acceptance: One of the most important things counselors can do is help clients reach acceptance of the food allergy diagnosis, Hubbard says. This can have similarities to grief work, including helping clients come to terms with the fact that they can’t change the situation, she explains. Narrative therapy can assist clients in reframing their feelings and taking control of their story.

Role-play can be beneficial for clients of all ages because it helps them learn to navigate their feelings and the language they will need to use to advocate for themselves. (For example, how will they explain that they can’t eat the cake at an upcoming birthday party?) Hubbard says she also finds play therapy, mindfulness and cognitive behavior therapy helpful for clients with food allergies.

Above all, she says, counselors should make sure their approaches are tailored to and appropriate for the individual client. “For kids, it’s not appropriate to talk about the risk of death [involved with food allergies], but coping with their feelings and worry is appropriate,” she notes.

Counselors can also model acceptance for clients in session, Hubbard adds. It can be a relief to find that “they don’t have to walk into a session defending themselves,” she says. “They can learn that not every conversation has to be fight-or-flight. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, for sure, just as with any chronic illness. Help clients pace themselves.”

> Find the right words: An individual with food allergies (or the parents of a child with food allergies) will need to explain the allergy to everyone from school staff to well-meaning relatives who are hosting a holiday dinner. Be aware that there can be cultural and generational differences in levels of understanding and flexibility surrounding food allergies, Hubbard advises.

“This can be hard for people who aren’t comfortable speaking up. If they’re not a natural advocate, it will now fall to them to educate [others] and advocate,” she says. “A counselor can help them manage the feelings around that, [including] frustration, burnout and exhaustion.”

> Guide children (and parents) as they grow up: Parents may find themselves growing anxious as their child with food allergies ages, develops more independence and spends more time away from home. Counselors can offer support as these families navigate the child’s developmental milestones. This might include encouraging the family to gradually give the child more freedom and responsibility to make safe choices independently.

For example, teenagers who are beginning to date may have to inform their love interests that they shouldn’t kiss for a while after the person has eaten something containing an allergen. “For every phase of life, there will be an additional need to explain and educate [about the allergy], and that can be exhausting,” Hubbard says.

> Be aware that “relapses” are possible: Clients who have made progress on accepting a food allergy and managing the emotions that come with it can “go back to ground zero” anytime they experience an allergic reaction or exposure scare, Hubbard says. Counselors shouldn’t be disappointed if these clients sometimes backslide on the progress they have previously made in therapy.

> Work with the allergist: Professional counselors shouldn’t hesitate to contact a client’s allergist (if the client grants permission). Counselor practitioners can learn a lot about the specifics of a client’s needs from the allergist, Hubbard says. For example, some food allergies are milder, whereas others can cause a reaction even from airborne exposure (for example, peanut dust). “Each client will have a specific set of data [regarding his or allergy],” Hubbard explains. “It’s important to stay connected with their allergist and check in to help you better understand.”

> Be cognizant that allergy-related bullying does happen: Being aware of allergy-related bullying is especially important for counselors who work in school settings or with children and adolescents in their practice, Hubbard notes. Up to one-third of children with food allergies have faced bullying, according to FARE.

This can include overt bullying, such as taunting or threatening a classmate with an allergen. But allergy-related bullying can also come in less obvious forms, such as when an adult (teacher, sports coach, etc.) points out the individual with an allergy and labels them as the “reason” the class or team can’t have certain foods. This type of scenario can make individuals feel bad about their allergies and the inconveniences they may present, Hubbard says.

 

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The Food Allergy Counseling Professionals Networking Group

Started by Tamara Hubbard, this group is open to counselors who work with clients who are managing food allergies. Connect with them on Facebook: facebook.com/groups/FoodAllergyCounselingProfessionals/ to share resources and network with other professionals who specialize in this area.

 

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Contact Tamara Hubbard and find resources at her website: foodallergycounselor.com

Hubbard also writes a blog on allergy-related issues, including a series titled “Four things counselors should know about food allergies.”

 

 

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Related reading

Hubbard suggests the following resources for counselors or clients looking to learn more about food allergies and their connection to mental health:

 

 

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Bethany Bray is a staff writer and social media coordinator for Counseling Today. Contact her at bbray@counseling.org.

 

Follow Counseling Today on Twitter @ACA_CTonline and on Facebook at facebook.com/CounselingToday.

 

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Opinions expressed and statements made in articles appearing on CT Online should not be assumed to represent the opinions of the editors or policies of the American Counseling Association.