Family Counseling Services

OhioGuidestone is a family resource and counseling network, dedicated to giving children and families the communication tools they need to create and maintain a happy, healthy, and strong connection. 

Every family has a unique story, and every family has some degree of dysfunction within their family dynamic. But when dysfunction IS the family dynamic, family therapy can be a great solution. 

Counseling for parents and child or children together creates a safe environment where every member of the family can speak freely and openly under the guidance of an OhioGuidestone expert in child-parent relationship therapy.

OhioGuidestone works with parents at every stage of the caregiving process. We provide them with the necessary knowledge and tools to support a healthy relationship with their child or children. The objective of family counseling is to help families improve their life situations through healthy communication, and by connecting with community resources that can address the core of the family’s problems.

Even under the best of circumstances, parenting can be a challenge. For parents in recovery or other circumstances, or needing extra support for a child with disabilities, OhioGuidestone offers education and training to improve family functioning and put families back together again. 

Our therapists, behavior specialists and educators are also mentors in their areas of experience and expertise. Our Addiction and Recovery services feature specialists and mentors who themselves are in recovery, and our Parent Coaching involves mentoring for new parents, Foster Parents, or caregivers who are struggling to raise a child. OhioGuidestone’s mentoring extends to fathers within our Father’s Feelings Project, a research study, where new fathers learn how to thrive with help from experienced mentors who are also fathers. 

Family therapy and counseling services are essential for families dealing with grief and loss. Sometimes a perfectly healthy family dynamic is broken apart by the death of a loved one, especially an unexpected death, or the death of a young family member. We saw a lot of this during the pandemic. The family can never return to what it once was, but OhioGuidestone therapists can help family members accept and adapt to a new normal and the idea that they can be a happy family again, and find joy, despite their loss.

Some of us at OhioGuidestone can speak from experience how the loss of a loved one has destroyed or complicated an otherwise happy family. We are here because we came through the grief and learned how sharing your grief as a family can be therapeutic and a big step toward finding a new normal that allows a family to move forward and find happiness by embracing each other while appreciating the memories of a lost loved one rather than forever grieving their loss and making grief part of the family dynamic.

In March of 2022, the National Institute of Mental Health put a name on what OhioGuidestone family therapists had seen for years in some families. Sometimes after a loss, grief becomes part of the family dynamic, continuing long after a loved one has passed. Components like guilt and anger can compound the feeling of loss, and it gets in the way of recovery. The diagnosis is Prolonged-Grief-Disorder. The diagnosis opens opportunities for therapists to extend treatment when needed and acknowledges that grief has become a part of a person’s life or family. OhioGuidestone’s family counseling can treat the individual for prolonged grief and teach family members how to acknowledge, accept and respond to another family member’s grief.

Grief over a loss is only one catalyst that can cause a need for family counseling. About any circumstance can feel like a loss or cause conflict within a family. Sometimes the addition of a family member in a new marriage can cause a problem, especially if it’s a second marriage with children entering a blended family. A child can feel grief over a new living situation and resent the stepparent and new siblings. This can be especially emotional if the loss of a parent put them in that situation.

Substance abuse, anger, lack of trust and differences in parenting and financial beliefs can jeopardize an otherwise happy family. Or sometimes a child’s behavior at school can negatively affect the circumstances at home. Even a parent’s infidelity in a marriage can cause fear and uncertainty in children, hurting the whole family. Regardless of what brings a family to OhioGuidestone’s family counseling, we have the experience and professionalism to help. Our therapists are compassionate and invested in your family’s mental health and wellbeing. We want you and your family to feel safe and comfortable in our care. Whether you are part of our online counseling, in a group, or one on one, you and your family can learn the skills to progress with healthy, productive communication with your loved ones, and any family members who show up in the future.