Strengthening Relationships and Healing Together
Every family faces challenges, whether it’s navigating major life transitions, improving communication, healing from past wounds, or simply learning to understand each other better. We understand that families are complex, interconnected systems where each member’s well-being affects the whole.
At Polaris Psychology, our online family therapy helps you discover your family’s inherent strengths and develop new patterns of interaction that support everyone’s growth and happiness. Our systemic and family therapy approach honors both individual needs and family dynamics, creating space for authentic connection and positive change.
Whether you’re parents seeking to improve your relationship with your children, a couple working through challenges, or a family dealing with a significant stressor, our family therapy provides a supportive environment where every voice is heard and valued.
Understanding Family Dynamics & Systems
Our integrative approach to family therapy draws from multiple evidence-based methodologies while always centering your family’s unique dynamics, values, and goals. We create a collaborative therapeutic environment where every family member feels safe to express themselves authentically.
Core Elements of Our Approach:
- Systemic Understanding: Viewing your family as an interconnected system where relationships and communication patterns affect everyone
- Strengths-Based Focus: Identifying and building on your family’s existing resources, skills, and positive qualities
- Communication Enhancement: Improving how family members express needs, listen to each other, and resolve conflicts
- Relationship Repair: Healing wounds, rebuilding trust, and strengthening emotional bonds between family members
- Practical Skill Building: Developing concrete tools for managing stress, handling transitions, and supporting each other
- Individual Recognition: Honoring each person’s developmental needs, personality, and contributions to the family
- Cultural Sensitivity: Respecting your family’s cultural background, values, and traditions throughout the therapeutic process
We adapt our methods to fit your family’s specific needs, whether you’re dealing with behavioral challenges, communication breakdowns, major life changes, or simply wanting to strengthen your family relationships.
Compassionate, Systemic Family Psychologists
Partner with licensed experts who understand and honor your family’s unique dynamics.
Finding the right fit for family therapy is an essential first step. Our clinical team is deeply committed to providing care that honors your family’s unique experiences and cultural background rather than placing blame. Whether you are navigating major life transitions, seeking to improve communication, or working through intergenerational patterns, our licensed psychologists work collaboratively with you to identify your family’s inherent strengths and navigate your specific challenges.
Ashley Welch, Psy.D.
Dr. Ashley Welch provides family therapy with extensive training in family systems therapy and a deep understanding of how individual struggles manifest within family systems. Her integrative approach emphasizes secure attachment relationships and helps families address both relationship dynamics and individual mental health concerns in a coordinated way.
Dr. Welch’s experience includes working with families facing behavioral issues in children, relationship conflicts between adult members, trauma, major life transitions, and intergenerational patterns. She specializes in helping families understand how anxiety, depression, and other mental health concerns affect family dynamics while creating therapeutic environments where every family member feels heard and supported toward collective healing and growth.
Ashley Welch, Psy.D.
Licensed Clinical Psychologist
Dr. Ashley Welch provides family therapy with extensive training in family systems therapy and a deep understanding of how individual struggles manifest within family systems. Her integrative approach emphasizes secure attachment relationships—utilizing principles of attachment based family therapy—and helps families address both relationship dynamics and individual mental health concerns in a coordinated way.
Dr. Welch’s experience includes working with families facing behavioral issues in children, relationship conflicts between adult members, trauma, major life transitions, and intergenerational patterns. She specializes in helping families understand how anxiety, depression, and other mental health concerns affect family dynamics while creating therapeutic environments where every family member feels heard and supported toward collective healing and growth.
Independently Verified Clinical Excellence
Our psychologists are verified by leading clinical directories and credentialing boards.
Common Areas We Address in Family Therapy
We adapt our methods to fit your family’s specific needs, whether you’re dealing with behavioral challenges, communication breakdowns, major life changes, or simply wanting to strengthen your family relationships. From teenager and family therapy to navigating complex family dynamics, we tailor our focus to the areas that matter most to your daily life.
Communication and Conflict Resolution
Improving Family Communication: Developing skills for expressing feelings, needs, and concerns in ways that promote understanding rather than defensiveness.
Conflict Management: Learning healthy ways to navigate disagreements, solve problems together, and repair relationships after conflicts.
Active Listening: Helping family members truly hear and understand each other’s perspectives, even when they disagree.
Parent-Child Relationships
Strengthening Parent-Child Bonds: Rebuilding connection and trust between parents and their pre-teens, adolescents, and adult children.
Behavioral Support: Addressing challenging behaviors by understanding their function within the family system and developing consistent, compassionate responses.
Adolescent Development: Supporting families through the unique challenges of teenage years, including identity formation, independence, and changing family roles.
Parenting Collaboration: Helping co-parents work together effectively, whether they’re married, divorced, or in blended family situations.
Family Transitions and Life Changes
Major Life Transitions: Supporting families through moves, job changes, divorce, remarriage, births, deaths, or other significant life events.
Blended Family Integration: Helping stepfamilies develop new traditions, rules, and relationships while honoring existing bonds.
Empty Nest Adjustments: Assisting parents and adult children in redefining their relationships as children become independent.
Generational Changes: Navigating evolving family roles as grandparents age and new generations take on different responsibilities.
Trauma and Loss
Family Trauma Healing: Addressing how traumatic experiences affect entire families and developing strategies for healing together.
Grief and Loss Support: Supporting families through the death of a loved one, miscarriage, or other significant losses that impact the whole family system.
Intergenerational Trauma: Understanding how past experiences and family history influence current relationships and breaking cycles of harm.
Behavioral and Emotional Challenges
Pre-teen and Teen Behavioral Issues: Addressing behavioral concerns by understanding their meaning within the family context and developing consistent family responses.
Mental Health Support: Supporting families when one or more members are dealing with depression, anxiety, ADHD, or other mental health conditions.
Special Circumstances
- Adoption and Foster Care: Supporting adoptive and foster families in building secure attachments and addressing unique challenges.
- Neurodivergent Family Members: Helping families understand and support neurodivergent family members while meeting everyone’s needs.
- Military and Deployment: Addressing the unique stressors that military families face, including deployment, reintegration, and frequent moves.
How We Approach Family Therapy
Our integrative approach to family therapy draws from multiple evidence-based methodologies while always centering your family’s unique dynamics, values, and goals. We create a collaborative therapeutic environment where every family member feels safe to express themselves authentically.
Core Elements of Our Approach
- Systemic Understanding: Viewing your family as an interconnected system where relationships and communication patterns affect everyone.
- Strengths-Based Focus: Identifying and building on your family's existing resources, skills, and positive qualities.
- Communication Enhancement: Improving how family members express needs, listen to each other, and resolve conflicts.
- Relationship Repair: Healing wounds, rebuilding trust, and strengthening emotional bonds between family members.
- Practical Skill Building: Developing concrete tools for managing stress, handling transitions, and supporting each other.
- Individual Recognition: Honoring each person's developmental needs, personality, and contributions to the family.
- Cultural Sensitivity: Respecting your family's cultural background, values, and traditions throughout the therapeutic process.
See If Online Family Therapy Is Right for You
We are currently accepting new families and have a licensed psychologist ready to meet with you via telehealth in
What to Expect in Family Therapy
Family therapy can feel vulnerable at first, especially when family members have different perspectives on problems or solutions. We create a safe, structured environment where everyone can be heard and respected.
Your Family Therapy Experience:
- Initial Assessment: We begin by understanding each family member’s perspective on current challenges, family history, and goals for therapy. This helps us develop a comprehensive understanding of your family system.
- Collaborative Goal Setting: Together, we identify specific outcomes your family wants to achieve, ensuring that everyone’s needs and concerns are addressed in our therapeutic work.
- Pattern Recognition: We help families identify relationship patterns that may be contributing to difficulties and develop new, healthier ways of interacting.
- Skill Development: We teach practical communication skills, problem-solving strategies, and emotional regulation techniques that family members can use both in sessions and at home.
- Homework and Practice: Between sessions, families practice new skills and try different approaches to familiar challenges, reporting back on what works and what needs adjustment.
- Progress Monitoring: We regularly check in on how therapy is impacting your family relationships and adjust our approach based on what’s most helpful.
- Strength Building: Throughout the process, we highlight and reinforce the positive changes your family is making and the strengths you demonstrate.
Family Therapy for Different Life Stages
As your family grows and evolves, so do the challenges you face. We adapt our therapeutic approach to meet your family exactly where you are in your journey. Whether you are navigating the shifting dynamics of the pre-teen and teenage years, adjusting to adult family relationships, or building a blended family, we provide targeted support for the transitions that matter most.
Families with Pre-Teens (Ages 10+)
The transition into pre-adolescence and middle school can significantly shift family dynamics. We focus on building secure communication, navigating new boundaries, and helping parents and pre-teens respond effectively to these emerging developmental challenges.
Families with Adolescents
Teenage years bring unique challenges as adolescents develop independence while remaining connected to family. We help families navigate this transition by improving communication, establishing appropriate boundaries, and strengthening relationships through this period of change.
Adult Families
We work with adult children and their parents to redefine relationships, address unresolved issues, and create new patterns of interaction that honor everyone’s autonomy while maintaining family connection.
Blended and Non-Traditional Families
Modern families come in many forms. We support stepfamilies, single-parent families, families with LGBTQ+ members, adoptive families, and other family configurations in developing their unique identity and addressing their specific challenges.
Types of Family Therapy Sessions
Every family’s needs are different. Throughout your time with us, your psychologist may recommend different session formats to best support your family’s goals.
Whole Family Sessions
We work with all family members together to observe family dynamics in real-time, improve communication patterns, and practice new ways of relating to each other.
Targeted Subsystem Work
Sometimes we meet with different parts of the family system–such as parents alone, siblings together, or parent-teen pairs–to address specific relationship dynamics.
Individual Sessions
When appropriate, we may meet with individual family members to understand their perspectives or work on personal issues that affect family relationships.
Multi-Generational Therapy
For families dealing with intergenerational patterns or caring for aging relatives, we can include grandparents or other extended family members in the therapeutic process.
Online Family Therapy in 44 U.S. states
Our online family therapy services allow families to engage in therapeutic work from the comfort of their own home. Many families find that being in their familiar environment helps them feel more relaxed and open during sessions. Our secure, HIPAA-compliant platform ensures privacy and confidentiality for all family therapy sessions.
The Benefits of Online Family Therapy:
- Convenience: No need to coordinate transportation or worry about scheduling conflicts.
- Comfort: Family members often feel more at ease in their own space.
- Accessibility: Families in rural areas or with mobility challenges can access specialized care.
- Flexibility: Easier to accommodate different family members’ schedules.
- Continuity: Maintain therapeutic relationships even when traveling or relocating.
Where We Provide Online Family Therapy
We are currently accepting new families and have a licensed psychologist ready to meet with you via telehealth in
We offer online Family Therapy in these states
Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
Frequently Asked Questions
We understand that beginning family therapy can raise a lot of questions. Below, you’ll find answers to common questions we hear. If you need more information or have specific concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us directly.
Q: How much does a session cost, and do you take insurance?
A: Each 53-minute session is $250. We do not accept insurance directly, but we can provide you with the necessary documentation (a “superbill”) to submit to your provider for potential out-of-network reimbursement. We also accept FSA/HSA accounts.
Q: Do all family members need to participate?
A: While we prefer to work with as many family members as possible, we understand that not everyone may be willing or able to participate initially. We can begin with whoever is ready and often find that positive changes in some family members encourage others to join the process.
Q: What if family members disagree about problems or solutions?
A: Different perspectives are normal and expected in families. Part of our role is helping family members understand each other’s viewpoints and find common ground while respecting individual differences.
Q: How long does family therapy take?
A: The length of family therapy varies depending on your goals and the complexity of the issues you’re addressing. Some families see improvement in just a few sessions, while others benefit from longer-term work. We regularly evaluate progress and adjust our approach based on your family’s needs.
Q: How often will we meet?
A: Most families begin with weekly sessions, though frequency can be adjusted based on your needs, goals, and progress. Some families prefer bi-weekly sessions, while others benefit from more intensive work initially.
Q: How does family therapy work through telehealth?
A: Our family therapy sessions are conducted through secure, confidential video conferencing, allowing each family member to join from wherever they feel most comfortable. Telehealth not only provides a safe and effective way to engage in therapy but also makes it easier to bring everyone together, as coordinating multiple schedules into one physical location can be challenging. With telehealth, family members can participate from different locations, making it more convenient for everyone to be present and fully engaged.
Q: What technology do I need for online family therapy?
A: You’ll need a device with a camera and microphone (computer, tablet, or smartphone) and a stable internet connection. We recommend using a computer or tablet for the best experience when multiple family members are participating. We’ll provide detailed instructions for accessing our secure platform.
Ready to Begin? Schedule Your Family Therapy Consult Today.
We know seeking help is a significant step, and we want to make it as smooth as possible for you. Simply use the calendar below to choose a time that works for you. Once booked, you’ll be set up for a direct consultation with one of our licensed psychologists.