AmyBegel

Amy began her  family therapy training over thirty years ago with Dr. Salvador Minuchin, a central figure in the development of family therapy and one of the most highly-regarded leaders in the field. Dr. Minuchin’s teaching, often referred to as “structural family therapy”, formed the underpinning of Amy’s evolution as a family therapist. This approach is characterized by observing how the couple or family operates in its present patterns, which provides an understanding of how the family gets “stuck” and symptoms develop. This present-oriented, experiential orientation allows for successful treatment for those who have tried other therapies without improvement. Over the past many years, Amy has seen hundreds of couples with significant marital distress, including extra-marital affairs. She has treated many families with difficult children, from two-year olds with temper tantrums to young adults with mood, school or social problems. Adults with anxiety or depression are treated with the same compassionate, relational framework which characterizes Amy’s work. Her wide experience, her growth as a human being, and her humanistic view of the families that seek her help often produces relatively brief and successful treatment. This includes what are commonly thought of intractable cases.

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One of the features of Amy's therapy is her orientation toward health. She pays attention to what's right with the people who come to her for therapy. She doesn't just look for what's wrong. She sees many people who have spent years in other therapy who identify themselves in terms of their deficits. This is a short-sighted and incomplete way to gain understanding of oneself and ones life circumstance.  We all have emotional resources that we don't fully use. Amy helps to identify those resources.