Therapy Group of Charleston
Every family develops its own way of handling stress, and sometimes that way stops working for the people in it. Dinner turns into a standoff. A teenager goes quiet behind a closed door. Adult siblings can’t discuss a parent’s care without an old argument coming back, or you and your co-parent disagree about everything that touches the kids.
Sometimes the strain follows a change: a separation, a remarriage, a move across the country, a new baby, a diagnosis, or a death. Sometimes it builds so gradually that nobody remembers when home started to feel this way. Family patterns can change, and family therapy is where that work happens.
Therapy Group of Charleston provides family therapy and family counseling in person in Mount Pleasant and by secure video statewide. Families come to us from downtown Charleston, North Charleston, Summerville, and all over the Lowcountry. Our two Mount Pleasant family therapists work with parents, couples, and families, including teens and adult family members.
Ask each person in a family what the problem is, and you’ll usually hear a different answer from everyone. Hearing those answers side by side is often the first time a family sees the whole picture.
What Is Family Therapy?
Family therapy is talk therapy for people connected by family: parents and children, partners raising kids together, stepfamilies, adult siblings, or grown children and their parents. The therapist works with the relationships between you and helps the family change the patterns that keep everyone stuck.
Family therapists call this looking at the family system. One person reacts, the next person reacts to that, and before long each family member is playing a familiar part. Most family therapy works on some mix of four things:
- Communication. Raising hard subjects so others can hear them, and listening without preparing your defense.
- The roles people fall into. The peacekeeper, the one who’s always in trouble, the parent who carries everything. Naming a role makes it easier to step out of it.
- Conflict and repair. Disagreeing without lasting damage, and coming back together after a hard day.
- Life transitions. Divorce, remarriage, a move, a loss, or a child leaving home asks everyone to find a new place in the family.
Your family therapist won’t take sides or assign blame. The aim is a household where each person feels heard and knows what to do when the next disagreement comes.
Jan
Savannah
Family Counseling for Conflict, Change, and Distance
Most families who reach out have more than one of these going on at once.
Family conflict that keeps repeating
The same blowup over chores, screens, money, or respect, ending the way it always does. Family therapy works on the pattern underneath the topic.
Parents and teens pulling apart
Slammed doors, one-word answers, and worry about what you aren’t being told. Sessions give parents and teens a way to talk that doesn’t end in silence.
Separation, divorce, and co-parenting
Rebuilding a family across two homes, agreeing on rules, and keeping the kids out of the middle. Co-parents can come together or separately.
Blended families and stepfamilies
New partners, new siblings, and loyalties that pull in different directions. Stepfamilies often need time, plus a shared plan for who handles discipline.
Adult children and aging parents
Caregiving decisions, old sibling rivalries that return, and the shift when a parent needs more help. Family sessions give adult siblings and parents a place to sort out the next step together.
Distance or estrangement
A relative you rarely speak to, or someone who has cut off contact. Therapy can help you decide what you want, whether that means reconnecting, setting limits, or making peace with the distance.
Wondering who should come first?
Start with whoever is ready. Tell us what's happening at home, and we'll suggest who to bring and when.
When One Person Is Struggling, the Whole Family Feels It
A mental health struggle in one family member, whether depression, anxiety, grief, or trauma, changes daily life for everyone. Partners take on more, kids tiptoe, and conversations start to organize themselves around avoiding a bad moment.
Family sessions can run alongside individual therapy, so the person who is struggling gets support and the people around them learn how to help without burning out.
Low Mood or Worry at Home
To the rest of the family, depression or anxiety can look like irritability or withdrawal. Understanding what’s driving it changes how everyone responds.
Depression therapy →After a Loss
Family members grieve on different timelines and in different ways, which can pull a family apart just when people need each other most.
Grief and loss counseling →After a Frightening Event
An accident, an assault, a deployment, or a serious illness can leave a household on high alert. Family sessions help everyone make sense of the reactions they’re seeing.
Trauma therapy →
Is Family Therapy Right for Your Family?
Consider family therapy if:
What to know
- In a 2025 analysis of therapy that brought parents and children together, the 10 studies that tracked both found that the more a parent improved, the more the child tended to improve too.
- In one randomized trial, adults recovering from depression relapsed far less often over nine months when a family member joined a four-session education program alongside their usual care: 8 percent, compared with 50 percent.
- Across 20 studies and more than 18,000 people, those who saw their families as more resilient reported fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression.
If someone is in danger, call 911. If you or someone in your family is thinking about suicide, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at any hour. For abuse or violence at home, the National Domestic Violence Hotline answers day and night at 1-800-799-7233.
How Our Family Therapists Work
Both of our therapists practice from a family systems perspective and add practical tools your family can use at home. Your therapist will shape the plan around your goals and who is taking part.
Seeing the Whole System
Your therapist watches how a hard moment unfolds between you, step by step, and where each person’s reaction feeds the next. Shift one step and the whole sequence often changes.
Practical Tools for Home
Communication and coping skills for the moments that go wrong most often: cooling a heated conversation, making a request without starting a fight, and solving problems together. Both therapists draw on cognitive behavioral therapy for this practical side.
The Right People in the Room
Some sessions include the whole family, and others include only the parents, a couple, siblings, or one person. Your therapist will suggest the mix that moves things forward.
Meet Our Therapists →
What to Expect in Family Therapy
Getting Oriented
The first session is often with the adults, or with whoever reached out. You’ll describe what’s been happening and what you hope will change, and together you’ll decide who should join the next sessions.
Building Understanding
Everyone gets a chance to describe the family as they see it. Your therapist maps the roles, the flash points, and the strengths your family already has.
Active Change
The family tries new ways of talking and responding, first in sessions and then at home. Expect some awkward attempts; new habits take practice.
Integration & Maintenance
As things calm down, sessions become less frequent. You leave knowing how to catch the old pattern early, including around the holidays and transitions that tend to set it off.
Family Therapy in Charleston, SC
Therapists who know Lowcountry families
Jan Stone Allen, a licensed marriage and family therapist and AAMFT Approved Supervisor, co-founded the practice, and most of Jan’s career has been spent with Lowcountry couples, parents, and families. Jan also served as a Military and Family Life Counselor, supporting service members and their families through deployments and moves. Savannah Jennings, a marriage and family therapist associate, spent nearly four years as a school counselor on Wadmalaw Island, where the work included monthly workshops for parents.
Meeting in person in Mount Pleasant
Our office is at 913 Bowman Road in Mount Pleasant, with parking at the building. Families who meet us there often come from Mount Pleasant, Daniel Island, Isle of Palms, and downtown Charleston.
Online family therapy for North Charleston, Summerville, and beyond
For families in North Charleston, Summerville, Goose Creek, and West Ashley, the drive can be the hardest part of fitting therapy into a busy week. Both therapists offer secure video sessions anywhere in South Carolina, and many families mix video and in-person visits.
One thing we often suggest early: choose a moment that goes wrong again and again, like the morning rush or the drive home, and notice what each person does. Most families find the sequence is more predictable than it feels, and a predictable sequence is one you can change.
Your Mount Pleasant Family Therapists
Jan and Savannah both work with families in person in Mount Pleasant and by secure video anywhere in South Carolina. Choose either therapist, or tell us about your family and we’ll suggest the better fit.
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