"Families shape the quality of our lives. Emotional links among family members stretch across households and decades, influencing our outlooks on life, motivations, strategies for achievement, and styles for coping with adversity. Family relations are the earliest and most enduring social relationships. As a result, family life experiences deeply affect the competence, resilience, and well-being of each of us."  By Stanley E. Hibbs, Ph.D.

As adults, we want the influence we spread in the world to be healthy, happy and peaceful.  In our family, however, often we bring our most tired, hungry, angry, stressed-out self's to those we love the most.  Where did our peaceful goal go?  Where did our peace go?  Where did we learn to be in a family this way?  Probably at home!

To change the way our family operates requires the commitment to learn new relating skills and manage our behavior with those we love.  When we courted our partner, we showed our most polished side, polite, thoughtful, sensitive, supportive, helpful.  Where did we loose those responses? 

Within a family, decisions are made, anger is expressed, money is spent or saved, Spirit is conveyed, nurturing is given, rules are made and imposed on behavior.  Every family's style dictates the pattern and flow of the energy expressed in the family.  Patterns and flow are learned from our families of origin, so we have the opportunity to learn new ones.  Family therapy is designed to teach new patterns.