FOUR OFFICES ACROSS PENNSYLVANIA · TELEHEALTH STATEWIDE

Family Therapy in Pennsylvania

Something between you stopped working, and the things that used to fix it don’t anymore. Your family doesn’t have to be falling apart to get help with that.

Family therapy at CPA Counseling helps families who keep landing in the same conflict, who are worried about someone, or who have quietly stopped understanding each other. Your therapist works with the relationships rather than with one person’s behavior — making the patterns between you visible, and changeable. In person at four Pennsylvania offices or by secure telehealth statewide.

Family Therapy woks - become clsoer to your child - remove the drama
No program commitments
UPMC · Aetna · Highmark · Cigna
All ages treated
Telehealth available statewide
Serving Clients since 2015

WHEN SOMETHING ISN’T WORKING

Something between you isn’t working

Families usually arrive from one of three places. None of them requires a crisis, and none of them means something is wrong with your family.

You keep having the same argument

Different subject every time, same shape every time. You can both predict how it goes before it starts, and knowing that hasn’t changed the ending once.

Someone is struggling and everyone feels it

A child who isn’t okay, a parent who isn’t coping, something nobody has named out loud. The whole house has rearranged itself around it, and that rearranging has its own cost.

You’ve stopped really talking

Logistics still work. Schedules, money, who’s picking up whom. The rest went quiet somewhere, and neither of you could say exactly when.

UNDERSTANDING FAMILY THERAPY

Nobody chose the pattern — which means it can be changed

A family is a system. What happens to one person moves through everyone else, reactions produce reactions, and over enough time those exchanges harden into something automatic. Nobody sat down and designed it. It accumulated, one reasonable response at a time.

“The question isn’t who started it. It’s what keeps it going.”

It isn’t about finding who’s at fault

Most families arrive with a private theory about whose fault this is, and sometimes two competing ones. A family therapist isn’t a referee and won’t be issuing a verdict. Blame is the least useful information in the room, because it explains how you got here and does nothing about what happens next.

What therapy actually does

It makes the pattern visible. Once a family can see the sequence — what sets it off, how each person responds, where it reliably lands — any one person changing their part changes the whole thing. That’s the leverage, and it’s why this works even when not everyone is equally willing.

WHY FAMILIES COME IN

The reasons families reach out

Conflict that keeps repeating

Arguments that resolve nothing and restart within the week.

Parent and child at an impasse

A relationship that used to work and currently doesn’t, at any age.

A change in someone’s behavior or mood

Withdrawal, anger, anxiety, or something you can’t name but can feel.

Separation, divorce, or a blended family

New structures, new loyalties, and rules nobody has agreed on yet.

Grief, illness, or a major transition

A loss or upheaval that landed differently on each person in the house.

Mental health or substance use in the household

One person’s condition reshaping how everyone else operates around it.

WHAT CAN CHANGE

What can actually be different

Not a different family. The same people, with a different set of moves available when things get hard.

Disagree without it escalating

The argument still happens. It just stops recruiting every old grievance on its way through, and it ends somewhere other than where it always ended.

Understand what sits underneath it

Most recurring conflicts are not about the thing being argued. Seeing what they are actually about is usually the moment the heat comes out of them.

Rebuild trust and connection

Slower than the rest, and it does not come from one conversation. It comes from a run of small exchanges that go differently than expected.

Respond instead of react

You see it starting while it is starting. That half-second of room is the whole difference, and it is the thing families notice first in themselves.

WHAT HAPPENS IN SESSION

What the work actually looks like

Nobody is put on trial and nobody is asked to confess. The first job is understanding what is happening and what each person sees differently.

1

Understanding what’s happening

Your therapist learns the situation from each person’s point of view — what changed, who is affected, and where the accounts differ. Those differences aren’t a problem to resolve. They’re the most useful information in the room.

2

Seeing the pattern

Together you map the sequence: what sets it off, how each person responds, and what the response produces in the next person. Families often recognize it immediately once it’s laid out, and that recognition is itself the turn.

3

Practicing something different

Then the part that takes repetition. New responses tried in session, used at home, brought back and adjusted. Who attends can change week to week depending on what’s being worked on.

WHO PARTICIPATES

Who comes depends on the work

Family means whoever is actually involved. Not every person attends every session, and the composition is a clinical decision rather than a rule.

Whoever is part of it

Parents, children, teenagers, adult children, siblings, partners, step-parents, grandparents, caregivers. If someone is part of the pattern or part of the solution, they can be part of the work.

Not everyone, every time

Some sessions are the whole family, some are two people, some are one. A teenager may need time alone with the therapist. Parents often need a session without the kids in it.

Alongside individual therapy

Family work often runs beside individual treatment for one member. Within CPA that coordination is straightforward, and we’ll say plainly when someone needs their own therapist rather than only the family room.

WHEN ONE PERSON IS STRUGGLING

One person’s difficulty is felt by everyone

Often the reason for the call belongs to one person. A child who stopped going to school. A teenager nobody can reach. An adult whose depression has changed the temperature of the whole house.

The difficulty is theirs. The effects are not. Everyone around it has adjusted — walking carefully, taking on more, managing around something nobody has said out loud. Those adjustments were sensible when they started and they tend to outlast the reason for them.

Family therapy gives the people around a struggling person something to actually do, without handing them responsibility for causing it. That distinction matters, and we keep it explicit.

“We thought we were coming in to fix him. It turned out the four of us had built something around him.”

Family therapy at CPA

We start by understanding the individuals and the relationships between them, which is not the same task and takes more than one conversation. Where mental health, trauma, a child’s developmental stage, or substance use is part of what’s happening, it gets accounted for rather than worked around.

Family work frequently runs alongside individual therapy, and having both inside one practice makes that coordination real instead of theoretical. The plan comes from your family’s actual circumstances. We don’t have a standard one.

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT FAMILY THERAPY

Eight things to know before you begin

What the page comes down to, if you read nothing else.

It isn’t about who’s wrong

The therapist is not a referee and won’t be picking a side. The work is understanding what happens between people and changing the part that isn’t working.

You don’t have to wait for a crisis

Recurring conflict, growing distance, or not being able to talk about the real thing is reason enough to ask whether this would help.

One person’s struggle touches everyone

A child’s anxiety, a parent’s depression, substance use, grief. One person’s difficulty changes how every relationship in the house operates.

Patterns can change

Families develop automatic ways of reacting to each other. Seeing the pattern is what makes a different response possible — and one person changing theirs moves the whole thing.

Communication is more than talking more

It includes hearing what someone is actually saying, saying what you need without an argument attached, and disagreeing in a way that ends.

You don’t all have to agree

This doesn’t require a shared version of events. Families can learn to hold different accounts without those differences doing damage every time they surface.

The work should fit your family

Who attends, what gets addressed, and how it proceeds should follow the actual people and circumstances involved — not a standard definition of family.

It starts with understanding, not fixing

The first task isn’t repairing anything. It’s understanding what brought you here, what each person is experiencing, and what you’d want to be different.

MEET THE TEAM

The therapists behind your care

The therapists below work with families across our four Pennsylvania offices and by telehealth statewide.

  • allison bare

    Allison Bare

    LSW · Gottman-Trained

    Locations: Altoona · Telehealth

    Skills: Gottman Method, IFS, Somatic Techniques

    Services: Marriage Counseling, ADHD, Autism

    Therapy should reflect the fact that no two people experience the world in exactly the same way.

    Allison provides Gottman-trained couples therapy and works with individuals ages 10 and up — supporting them through ADHD, autism, anxiety, addiction, grief, and life transitions.

  • Amber Kottner

    Amber Kottner

    MA, LPC

    Locations: South Hills · Telehealth

    Skills: CBT, Solution-Focused, Person-Centered

    Services: Anxiety, Children & Adolescents, Grief & Loss

    I view therapy as a special partnership.

    With more than ten years in private practice, Amber brings a warm, open, and supportive presence — an eclectic, tailored approach that helps children, teens, and adults work through anxiety, depression, grief, and life’s difficult times.

  • Ashley Spahn

    Ashley Spahn

    MSW, LCSW

    Locations: South Hills · Telehealth

    Skills: EMDR, ERP, CBT

    Services: PTSD, OCD, Anxiety

    The therapeutic relationship is a partnership.

    With a warm, empathetic, partnership-based approach, Ashley helps adults work through anxiety, depression, trauma, addiction, and life transitions — and celebrate their growth along the way.

CONDITION GUIDE

Family guides from our therapists

  • Living Vicariously Through Your Child?

    Family

    Your Dreams on Hold: Are You Living Vicariously Through Your Child?

    Living vicariously through your child means pinning your own unmet dreams or self-worth on their performance. It usually comes from love, but it can raise a child's anxiety and reverse healthy roles. Tess Inman, LPC helps parents and families across Altoona recognize these patterns and build healthier connection — in person or by telehealth across Pennsylvania.

  • Caregiving for an Aging Parent

    Family

    Caregiving for an Aging Parent: The Emotional Toll

    Caring for an aging parent can be emotionally exhausting, and it often stirs up unresolved feelings from the past alongside the practical demands. Guilt, grief, resentment, and self-doubt are common and don’t make you a bad caregiver. Setting boundaries, accepting help, and getting support protect your own well-being. Cristina Panaccione, LPC and the CPA team help caregivers across Pennsylvania.

  • Coping with Your Kids

    Family

    Coping with Your Kids: Parenting Stress & Support

    Parenting is demanding, and feeling overwhelmed doesn’t make you a bad parent. Coping well means protecting your own well-being, keeping routines, staying patient through big feelings, and asking for help when you need it. Support for parents is a strength, not a failure. Amber Kottner, LPC helps parents and families across Pittsburgh’s South Hills.

  • self-care

    Family

    Self-Care for New Moms: Realistic Postpartum Support

    Real self-care for new mothers often isn’t bubble baths or an ambitious routine — sometimes it’s lowering the bar: eating, showering, sleeping while someone else holds the baby, and asking for specific help. New motherhood is a major life transition, and loving your baby while struggling with motherhood can coexist. Baby blues, postpartum depression, and postpartum anxiety are not the same; persistent or severe symptoms deserve care. If you have thoughts of harming yourself or your baby, call 988 or 911.

  • Parenting Shame

    Family

    Parenting Shame: Why Did I Have Kids Again?

    Parenting shame is the guilt and self-judgment parents feel when they resent the hardest parts of raising children — even thinking "why did I have kids?" It’s extremely common and doesn’t make you a bad parent. Naming it, lowering the impossible standards, and getting support can ease the shame and help you enjoy parenting again. Cristina Panaccione, LPC and the CPA team help families across Pennsylvania.

  • Family

    Postpartum Anxiety: The Anxious Mother

    Postpartum anxiety (PPA) affects roughly 1 in 10 new mothers and can bring constant worry, racing thoughts, physical tension, and sometimes panic attacks — distinct from, and sometimes alongside, postpartum depression. It’s common, it’s not a sign of failure, and it’s very treatable with therapy and support. Cristina Panaccione, LPC and the CPA team help mothers and families across Pennsylvania.

COMMON QUESTIONS

Questions about Family Therapy

Straightforward answers to what families ask most often before their first session.

Most families start weekly and work in a defined stretch rather than open-endedly — often somewhere between eight and twenty sessions, depending on what’s being worked on. Families dealing with a specific rupture may need fewer. Families managing a long-standing pattern or an ongoing condition often continue at lower frequency. There’s no program length you’re committing to.

Reluctance is normal, especially from teenagers and from the person who suspects the session is really about them. Your therapist will work with who shows up and won’t pressure anyone into the room. Family patterns are interactive, which means one or two people changing their part shifts the whole system — reluctant members often join later once they see the room isn’t what they expected.

No. Nobody is put on trial, and the therapist is not there to determine fault. Early sessions are mostly questions — what’s happening, who’s affected, what each person sees differently. If a conversation gets heated the therapist will slow it down, because escalation in session teaches nothing that escalation at home hasn’t already taught you.

No. Not everyone needs to be in every session. A teenager may need time alone with the therapist, parents often need a session without the children present, and sometimes the useful work is between two people rather than everyone. What’s said in an individual session is handled carefully and the therapist will be explicit about how that works before it happens.

They’re related and they overlap. Couples therapy works on the relationship between partners. Family therapy works on the relationships across a household — parents and children, siblings, step-families, adult children and aging parents. If the central issue is the couple, that’s couples work. If it runs through the household, it’s family work. The first conversation sorts that out.

Not necessarily. Healthier family functioning sometimes means clearer boundaries, adjusted expectations, or accepting a difference that isn’t going to resolve. Plenty of families finish closer than they started. Others finish with less damage happening and more honesty about what the relationship is. Both are legitimate outcomes.

It can work well, and for families spread across locations — a college student, a co-parent in another town, an adult sibling out of state — it’s often the only way everyone gets in the same room. Some situations are better in person, particularly with younger children. Many families mix the two.

READY TO START?

You don’t have to know what to call it

Families rarely stay the same when nothing changes. The distance grows a little each year, the conversations get a little more careful, and the version where everyone manages around it starts to feel like how it has always been. The first conversation is just understanding what’s happening — no diagnosis, no plan, and nobody has to be ready to say the hard thing yet.