Our specialist family therapists work systemically — understanding that problems rarely belong to just one person, but emerge from patterns within the family as a whole. Drawing on established approaches including systemic family therapy, Emotionally Focused Therapy for families (EFT-F), attachment-based family therapy, and narrative therapy, our clinicians help families of all configurations move from stuck, painful dynamics toward greater understanding, communication, and connection.
4.86 rating based on Doctify, Google and Trustpilot reviews
No two families are the same, and the reasons families seek professional support are as varied as family life itself. Families come to London Trusted Therapy Harley Street when:
You do not need to be in crisis to benefit from family therapy. Many families come not because something is catastrophically wrong, but because they want to understand each other better, navigate a transition more skillfully, or break a cycle before it becomes entrenched.
95% of our clients report positive treatment outcomes and would recommend us to family and friends
Our family therapists at London Trusted Therapy Harley Street are fully accredited specialists in systemic therapy and family dynamics, skilled at working with families of all configurations. They bring deep respect for family complexity, creating a space where every member — from young children to grandparents — can be heard and valued. Here are the therapists who work with families — please review their profiles to find the right fit for your family.
Individual and Couples Psychotherapist
Individual and Couples Psychotherapist
Individual and Couples Psychotherapist EMDR
Individual Family and Young People Psychotherapist
Individual Couples and Family Psychotherapist
Individual and Couples Psychotherapist
Individual Couples Family Psychotherapist
Counselling Psychologist Individual Couples and Family Psychotherapist
Clinical Psychologist Individual Couples and Family Psychotherapist
Counselling Psychologist Individual and Couples Psychotherapist EMDR
Individual Couples Family and Group Psychotherapist EMDR
Counselling Psychologist Individual and Family Psychotherapist EMDR
Family therapy is based on systems theory — the understanding that families function as interconnected units where change in one part affects the whole. A child’s behavioral problems often reflect broader family dynamics. Parental conflict impacts children’s emotional wellbeing. Sibling rivalry may mask deeper issues about parental attention or family roles. By examining the family as a system, we identify patterns that maintain problems and find leverage points for positive change.
Every family has its own culture, unwritten rules, assigned roles, and ways of relating. Some patterns are healthy and supportive; others create dysfunction. Family members often aren’t consciously aware of their family’s patterns — they’re simply how things have always been. Family therapy makes these invisible patterns visible, allowing families to deliberately choose which patterns to keep and which to change.
Families also move through natural developmental transitions — birth of children, adolescence, launching young adults, retirement, aging. Each transition requires adjustment of family roles and relationships. Sometimes families get stuck in outdated patterns. Family therapy helps families navigate these transitions successfully, adapting to changing needs while maintaining connection.
Family therapy is grounded in the understanding that we are shaped by — and in turn shape — the systems we belong to. A child who struggles at school does not exist in isolation from the family’s dynamic. A parent’s unresolved grief affects their parenting. A teenager’s anger may be expressing something the whole family has not yet been able to say. Our family therapists hold this whole-system view without losing sight of each individual within it.
The bedrock of our family work. Systemic therapy explores how communication patterns, roles, beliefs, and relational dynamics within the family system maintain or create difficulties. Rather than identifying a single member as 'the problem', it examines the patterns that connect everyone. Our systemic therapists create a genuinely neutral space — one where no member feels blamed, and where even long-standing conflict can begin to shift when the underlying patterns are made visible.
An extension of the highly evidenced EFT model into family work, EFT for families focuses on attachment bonds and emotional responsiveness within the family. It is particularly powerful when family members feel chronically misunderstood or disconnected, or when a young person is struggling with anxiety, depression, or significant behavioural difficulties. EFT helps families access the softer emotions beneath the surface conflict, creating the conditions for genuine reconnection.
Developed specifically for adolescents and their families, ABFT is one of the most rigorously researched models for working with teenagers experiencing depression, suicidality, or family rupture. It works by repairing the attachment relationship between parent and young person — rebuilding the trust, safety, and emotional communication that adolescents need in order to thrive.
Narrative therapy helps families re-author the stories they tell about themselves — particularly when one member has become identified as 'the problem', 'the difficult one', or 'the sick one'. By separating the person from the problem and exploring shared narratives, it opens new possibilities for how families understand and relate to each other.
For families who want practical, forward-looking support, a solution-focused approach builds on existing strengths and resources rather than dwelling in problem analysis. It is time-efficient and particularly useful for families navigating specific transitions or who have clear goals but limited time.
When a child or young person's behaviour has become physically or psychologically threatening — including aggressive, controlling, or self-destructive behaviour — Non-Violent Resistance is an evidence-based approach that empowers parents to re-establish safety and authority without escalating conflict. Our NVR-trained clinicians work closely with parents to develop practical, compassionate de-escalation strategies that preserve the relationship.
Scapegoating assigns one family member — usually a child — as the problem. This identified patient carries family dysfunction, distracting from other issues. Family therapy redistributes responsibility, showing how family patterns contribute to symptoms.
Enmeshment describes families with weak boundaries where members are overly involved in each other’s lives. Privacy is minimal, independence is discouraged. While closeness is valuable, enmeshment prevents healthy individuation. Disengagement represents the opposite—families with rigid boundaries and minimal emotional connection. Family therapy helps families find balance between connection and autonomy.
Separation and divorce do not end a family — they transform it. How that transformation is navigated has a profound and lasting impact on children. Our family therapists support separating families in building functional co-parenting relationships, helping children adjust to new living arrangements, and managing the emotional complexity of a family reorganising itself.
We can work with the whole family, with co-parents separately, or with children individually alongside family work as needed.
Blended families carry their own distinct joys and challenges. New relationships between step-parents and stepchildren take time. Competing loyalties, grief for the previous family configuration, and clashes of values or household rules can create significant tension.
Our therapists approach blended family work with deep respect for its complexity — helping all members feel heard, building new shared norms, and creating the conditions for a genuinely united family identity to emerge.
Adolescence is one of the most demanding passages for families. Young people are building identity, testing limits, and moving toward independence — and this is as it should be. But when the relationship between a teenager and their parents becomes a source of chronic pain, miscommunication, or crisis, family therapy offers a powerful point of intervention.
Our clinicians specialise in working with teenagers struggling with mental health, risky behaviour, academic pressures, or identity challenges — creating bridges of understanding that parents and young people often cannot build alone.
Families where one or more members are neurodivergent — including those with ADHD, autism, dyslexia, or sensory processing differences — face a distinctive set of joys and pressures. Differences in communication styles, sensory needs, and ways of processing the world can create persistent misunderstanding, exhaustion, and conflict — even in families with the deepest love.
Some of the most damaging patterns in family life are not chosen — they are inherited. Trauma, neglect, emotional unavailability, and dysfunctional relational dynamics can pass silently from one generation to the next, recreating themselves in new families long after their original source has been forgotten.
Our therapists help families make these invisible inheritances visible — and, crucially, to choose something different. This work is slow, deep, and often profoundly transformative.
When a family member is living with significant mental health difficulties — depression, anxiety, an eating disorder, OCD, or psychosis — the effect on the whole family is enormous. Families often feel confused, frightened, or unsure how to help without inadvertently making things worse.
Family therapy provides education, emotional support, and practical guidance — reducing the burden of isolation and creating a more informed, responsive family environment.
Loss affects every member of a family differently, and yet families often struggle to grieve together. Adults try to protect children; siblings pull apart; parents manage their own grief whilst containing everyone else’s.
Family bereavement therapy creates a space for collective grief — where every member’s experience of loss can be witnessed and held, and where the family can find a new equilibrium that honours what has been lost.
Children who have experienced early adversity, trauma, or multiple placements bring particular attachment challenges.
Our therapists work with adoptive and foster families to understand the impact of early experiences on a child’s behaviour and emotional regulation, helping families develop the therapeutic parenting strategies these children need. We work collaboratively with local authorities, schools, and other professionals where appropriate.
Many families seek therapy for help with parenting challenges. Parents may disagree about discipline, struggle with a particular child, or feel overwhelmed. Family therapy provides evidence-based parenting guidance while addressing family dynamics that maintain problems.
Effective discipline requires consistency, age-appropriateness, and connection. Authoritative parenting — firm but warm, with clear expectations and logical consequences — produces the best outcomes. Family therapy helps parents develop united, consistent approaches.
When parents disagree about parenting, children quickly learn to manipulate these differences. Family therapy helps parents get on the same page, presenting united front to children even when they privately disagree.
Family means something different to everyone — and we work with all of them. London Trusted Therapy Harley Street offers family therapy to:
One of the most common concerns families bring to us is whether, and how, to include younger children in therapy. There is no single right answer — it depends on each child’s age, developmental stage, the nature of the issues being addressed, and the preferences of the family.
Our therapists are experienced in working with children of all ages within a family therapy context. Younger children participate through play-based and creative approaches — using art, story, and imaginative play as a medium for expression that bypasses the need for verbal fluency. School-age children engage increasingly verbally, always supported and never burdened with adult concerns. Teenagers participate as full partners in the therapeutic process.
One of our fundamental principles is that children are never positioned as the source of the problem, and are never exposed to material that is not appropriate to their developmental stage. Every member — including the youngest — can feel safe, heard, and valued.
Your first session is an opportunity for your therapist to understand your family’s history, the current challenges you are facing, and what you most hope therapy will achieve. This is an exploratory, non-judgmental conversation — not a diagnostic interview.
Your therapist will listen carefully to each person present, work to understand the relational patterns at play, and, together with your family, begin to shape a therapeutic focus.
Ideally, all family members who are part of the system being explored. Reluctance is very common and entirely understandable — your therapist is experienced in working with family members who are sceptical or fearful. That said, family therapy can begin with whoever is willing to participate.
Even partial engagement from the family system can create meaningful change.
Family therapy sessions are typically 60–90 minutes, reflecting the complexity and number of people involved. Sessions often take place fortnightly, giving families time to integrate what is explored between meetings.
Duration varies considerably — some families find significant benefit within 6–10 sessions; others engage in longer-term work. Your therapist will review progress regularly and adapt the approach as your family evolves.
Confidentiality in family therapy is a nuanced matter, and your therapist will discuss it transparently with you at the outset. What is shared in family sessions is held within the family system, not disclosed externally — with the exception of safeguarding concerns, which your therapist is legally obligated to act upon.
If individual sessions are part of the work, the boundaries of confidentiality will be agreed explicitly in advance.
Cultural background profoundly shapes family structure, communication, discipline, gender roles, and values. Some cultures emphasise collectivism; others prioritise individual achievement. Expectations about children’s independence, elder care, and extended family involvement vary enormously across cultures.
Our therapists approach cultural differences with humility and respect, not imposing Western therapeutic norms on families from different traditions. We explore how cultural values influence your family and help families honour their heritage while adapting to their current context.
In the UK the terms are often used interchangeably. Family therapy tends to refer to more structured, systemic work drawing on established therapeutic models, while family counselling may describe shorter-term, solution-focused support. Our clinicians bring full therapeutic training to all family work and will discuss the most appropriate framework in your first session.
Ideally, all core family members participate — but this is not always possible or appropriate. Therapy can begin with whoever is willing, and even one or two motivated family members can create meaningful ripple effects through the wider system. Your therapist will discuss attendance flexibly and practically.
Reluctance is extremely common, particularly from teenagers and from members who feel blamed. Your therapist can help you think through how to extend an invitation that is more likely to be accepted. Beginning with those who are willing — and working toward including the reluctant member over time — often proves very effective.
Yes. Online family therapy can be highly effective, particularly when family members are in different locations or when schedules make in-person attendance difficult. We offer secure, confidential online sessions and can discuss the best logistics for your family’s circumstances.
Absolutely — and for many families, this is one of the most valuable times to access family therapy. A neurodevelopmental diagnosis changes how family members understand each other, and often unlocks significant relief alongside new questions and challenges. Our clinicians bring specialist understanding of neurodivergent family dynamics and can help the whole family adjust, communicate more effectively, and build a shared framework that supports every member.
Reaching out for family therapy takes courage — and often, one person’s willingness to take that step changes everything. Whether you are in the middle of a crisis, at the end of your tether, or simply aware that something important needs to shift, London Trusted Therapy Harley Street is here to help.
Contact us today to book a consultation, to ask a question, or to speak with a member of our clinical team about the right approach for your family.
We will listen carefully, respond without judgement, and work with you to find the best way forward.
Should you feel that your first session did not meet your expectations or that your therapist wasn’t a good fit, we will provide another session completely free of charge with a different practitioner.
We are proud to work in partnership with major UK and global insurers, as an approved mental health provider, supporting various clients in their therapy journey around the globe.
