Family of Origin
Healing Family of Origin Trauma
Every family teaches rules, spoken or not. Some of the ones you learned early, like "keep everyone happy" and "never need help," may still be running your adult life. This work is about seeing those rules clearly and choosing which ones you want to keep.
Rules you learned before you could question them
Children adapt to the family they have. If a parent's mood set the weather in your house, you learned to read the room before you walked into it. If your needs were met with irritation or silence, you learned to need very little. Those rules were intelligent responses to a hard situation. Then you grew up, and the rules came with you: into your closest relationships, your friendships, your work and sometimes your faith. You may recognize some of these.
- Apologizing for things that are not yours
- Feeling responsible for everyone else's mood
- Going quiet or freezing when conflict starts
- Visits home that leave you drained for days
- Achievements that never quite feel like enough
Looking at the whole family system
My training as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist means I look at the relationships around a problem, not only at the person sitting across from me. Together we can map the roles in your family, what happened when someone broke an unspoken rule, and how certain patterns travel from one generation to the next. That systemic lens can make your reactions make sense in a new way. It can also soften the shame, because you can finally see how you were shaped.
Psychodynamic work adds another layer, looking at how early experiences still echo in the way you react today: why a certain tone of voice makes you feel twelve again, or why resting feels like breaking a rule. The aim is not to blame your parents or to excuse them. It is to understand, so your choices today can come from who you are now. My approach page describes these methods in plain language.
When what happened at home was trauma
Some families were mostly loving and still left a mark. Others involved violence, sexual harm, addiction, or a parent whose anger or absence ruled the house. Family-of-origin trauma is part of my primary specialty, and the principles of my trauma therapy apply here too: safety comes before breakthrough, the pace belongs to you, and you never have to retell everything for the work to matter.
If the harm went on for years, the page on complex trauma describes how that longer work is paced. If a parent's drinking or using shaped your childhood, you may also see yourself in the page for partners and families of addicts. Wherever you recognize yourself, we start with what is happening in your life now and look back only as far as you choose to.
Boundaries with the family you have now
Your family of origin may still be part of your week: holiday plans, a group text, an aging parent, a sibling who still plays the old role. Boundaries do not have to be dramatic to matter. We work on them in small steps, such as choosing what you will share before a visit, planning when you will leave, and deciding what you will do the next time a familiar pattern starts. Some relationships may grow closer as you do this. Others may need more distance.
That decision belongs to you. I will not tell you to cut anyone off, and I will not tell you to keep showing up for harm. What I can do is help you see your options clearly and work with the guilt that tends to follow any new boundary. If saying no has always felt dangerous, the page on people pleasing goes deeper into that piece.
Faith, forgiveness and reconciliation on your terms
If you are a person of faith, you may feel pressure to forgive quickly, to honor your parents in ways that keep you hurting, or to act as though nothing happened. I am seminary trained, and I can integrate faith, anger, forgiveness and reconciliation when you ask for that, as the page on Christian counseling describes. We can treat forgiveness and reconciliation as separate questions and take each one at your pace. None of it is forced, and none of it is assumed. If faith is not part of your life, it does not come into the room.
Practical details for getting started
Weekly sessions run 50 to 80 minutes. A 50-minute individual session is $190 and an 80-minute session is $275. The 80-minute initial assessment at the beginning is also $275. You can come to the Southwest Austin office on Fridays and select other times, walk and talk outdoors, or meet by telehealth anywhere in Texas, in English or Spanish. Before that comes a free 15-minute phone consultation, where you can share as much or as little as you like about what has been hardest.
Common Questions
Is this about blaming my parents?
No. The goal is to understand the rules you learned and how they work in your life now, not to put anyone on trial. Understanding can hold both what was loving and what was harmful.
Do I have to cut off contact with my family?
No. Boundaries can be small and specific, and you decide what closeness or distance looks like. We practice those choices at a pace that feels safe to you.
Can my faith be part of this work?
Yes, if you want it to be. My seminary training lets me integrate faith, anger, forgiveness and reconciliation when you ask for that. It is never assumed or introduced without your say-so.
The consultation is free and there is no obligation on either side.
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