Family Therapy in Paramus, NJ
In-person family counseling in Bergen County, and telehealth for families anywhere in New Jersey
When a family is stuck in the same argument, the same silence, or the same standoff, it affects everyone under the roof. You may be trying to reach a teenager who has gone quiet, navigating a separation across two households, or watching a loss pull everyone in a different direction.
Family therapy in Paramus, NJ at Dr Stephen Oreski and Associates gives your family a neutral room and a clinician whose job is not to pick a side. We work with parents and children, teens, adult siblings, blended families, and multigenerational households. Sessions are available in person at our Paramus office and by secure telehealth anywhere in New Jersey.
Start with a 15-minute consultation. Call (551) 579-4441 or schedule your consultation.
Family counseling services we provide in Paramus
Family therapy is one of several therapy services in Paramus at our practice. Within family work, these are the situations we see most.
Parent and teen counseling
As children grow, expectations and the need for independence shift faster than the household rules do. Parents arrive frustrated by defiance or withdrawal. Teenagers arrive convinced they are criticized no matter what they say.
Sessions focus on what is actually driving the standoff, how each person hears the other, and boundaries that both sides can live with. Where a young person also needs individual support, we offer child therapy and teen counseling alongside the family work.
Divorce, separation, and co-parenting counseling
One of the most common reasons families come to us, and worth saying plainly: you do not need to want your marriage back to benefit from this.
Co-parenting counseling builds a working relationship between two households. Sessions cover consistent rules across homes, handing off information without a fight, what to tell the children and when, a new partner entering the picture, and separating the parenting partnership from the romantic one that ended. Children and teens can be seen individually in parallel, so a child has somewhere to put their own reaction that is not either parent’s living room.
If you are still in the decision itself, or working through the end of the marriage rather than the parenting arrangement, divorce therapy is the closer fit. The consultation call will sort out which.
One important limit: where there is active abuse or coercive control, joint sessions can put someone at risk. Tell us on the consultation call and we will route you to individual care or an appropriate specialist service instead.
Blended and stepfamily therapy
Remarriage brings new roles, new rules, and loyalties that have not settled. Children may resist a stepparent’s authority while the adults disagree about whose job it is to enforce anything. Sessions give everyone a place to say what they actually expect, and to arrive at expectations that match the family that now exists.
Family counseling for conflict and communication
Sometimes nobody is in crisis and everyone cares about each other, and the conversations still fail. One person avoids, another escalates, and the pattern hardens.
Your clinician traces the loop, names the triggers, and works on specifics: listening without preparing a rebuttal, raising a hard subject without an accusation, and ending a disagreement before it reaches the point where things get said that cannot be taken back.
Where the central relationship is the couple rather than the wider family, marriage and couples counseling is the better starting point.
Adult family and sibling counseling
Most family therapy assumes a parent and a minor child. A good share of our work is not that.
Adult siblings who stopped speaking. Adult children and parents repeating a dynamic set thirty years ago. Caregivers burning out while other siblings stay uninvolved. Decisions about an aging parent’s care that surface every old grievance. A parent and an adult child trying to build a different relationship than the one they had.
This work is often shorter and more focused than people expect, because adults can usually name the pattern once someone asks the right question.
Grief and loss
A death affects each person differently, and those differences create their own distance. One family member wants to talk about it constantly, another cannot, and each reads the other as doing it wrong.
Sessions make room for both, which is usually what unlocks the household. For adults who want to grieve alongside others who understand it, we also run a small grief support group at the Paramus office.
Autism and developmental disabilities
We support children, teens, college students, and adults, including families working through a new diagnosis. Our approach recognizes both the individual and the family-wide impact of developmental differences, and the work covers:
- Understanding and managing autism spectrum disorder and related symptoms
- Coping strategies for anxiety, depression, and other emotional responses that often accompany a diagnosis
- Practical support and resources for parents and siblings
- Realistic routines and expectations that work for the whole household
- Collaborative planning with educators and other professionals, with consent, so support stays consistent across school and home
LGBTQIA+ affirming family counseling
An affirming room for families navigating a coming out, questions about identity, or the distance that opens up afterward. Work may cover difficult conversations, beliefs and values that feel like they are in conflict, and rebuilding trust. The goal is not tolerance, it is getting back to actually knowing each other.
Individual LGBTQ-affirming therapy is available alongside the family sessions where someone wants their own space for it.
Signs your family may benefit from counseling
You do not need a crisis to call. Most families reach out because things have gradually become harder to manage.
- Conversations end in arguments, criticism, or frustration most of the time
- A child, teen, or adult family member has become increasingly withdrawn
- Parents disagree about discipline, screens, or expectations and undermine each other in front of the kids
- Separation, divorce, or remarriage has changed how the household works
- Siblings or generations are in a conflict nobody can resolve
- Grief, anxiety, depression, or trauma is creating stress at home
- Substance use or disordered eating has changed how the household functions
- Someone feels ignored, misunderstood, or emotionally disconnected
- Everyone wants things to improve and nobody knows where to start
You do not all need to agree that therapy is a good idea before you call. Plenty of families start with one willing person.
How we work
Family therapy is not one method. Your clinician draws on what fits your family and will explain the approach rather than applying a template.
- Systemic family therapy: Treats the household as a unit and traces how one person’s behavior keeps another person’s going. Useful when everyone is reacting to everyone else and nobody can find the start of the loop.
- Emotionally focused therapy: Works with the attachment underneath the conflict. Useful when the fighting is really about feeling unimportant to each other.
- Internal Family Systems: Helps individual members understand the protective parts of themselves that show up as anger or shutdown.
- CBT and DBT skills: Give family members concrete tools for managing anger, anxiety, and distress in the moment, which matters when arguments escalate fast.
- Trauma-focused approaches: For families where a specific event is still driving the present, including post-traumatic stress that has reshaped the household. Dr. Oreski specializes in EMDR therapy for this work.
Faith-integrated counseling is available with clinicians who practice it, including Christian counseling with Sara Betancourt. Sessions in Spanish, Hindi, Gujarati, and Russian are available with specific clinicians.
What to expect
Here is the short version.
- A 15-minute consultation. Tell our client care team what is happening and ask whatever you need to ask. We will tell you honestly whether family therapy is the right fit or whether individual or couples work makes more sense first. No charge, no obligation to book.
- The first session. The initial intake usually includes everyone who lives with the problem, though not always. Your clinician listens to each person’s version without ranking them, explains how confidentiality works, then names the pattern they see. Most families find that first naming of the pattern a relief, because it stops being about who is at fault.
- The work. Weekly or every other week to start. Sessions might include the whole family, a parenting pair, a parent and one child, or an individual for a stretch. Your clinician will explain why each configuration is being used, and you will leave with something specific to practice at home.
- How long. Focused work on one issue, such as co-parenting after a separation, often runs 10 to 20 sessions. Long-standing patterns or family trauma usually take longer. Your clinician gives you an honest estimate at intake and revisits it as you go.
Who you would work with
Family work is a core part of this practice, not something a few clinicians take on the side. Finding the right family therapist matters more than the method, so several of our clinicians have specific training in family systems, and others bring experience with the particular issue your family is facing.
Licensed marriage and family therapists
Anna Tseytlina, LMFT is a licensed marriage and family therapist with more than five years of family systems work. She is trained with children from age five up, teens, families, and couples, and uses play therapy, art therapy, and communication work alongside CBT.
Sara Betancourt, LAMFT holds a master’s in marriage and family therapy and works with marital and family crises across children, adolescents, adults, and couples. She is bilingual, and offers faith-integrated Christian counseling for families who want it.
Clinicians with extensive family systems training
Domini D. Oreski, ACSW, LCSW brings more than 35 years of practice and extensive training in both couples and family systems therapy, with an integrated approach that works with body, mind, heart, and spirit.
Dr. Stephen Oreski, LCSW has more than 20 years working with adults, couples, and families, with particular depth in trauma and EMDR, including the ways trauma affects trust, intimacy, and family relationships.
Kathleen F. Murray, LCSW has more than 20 years with children, adolescents, adults, families, and couples, drawing on family systems theory, CBT, and creative arts work. A certified school social worker, she led the Families and Schools Together program and works on parenting challenges, adoption, ADHD, and learning differences.
Anna Segelbacher, LCSW, BCBA applies family systems theory from years of school-based work with students and their families. She offers Parent Management Training, and as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst she also works with adult autism spectrum disorder.
Family counseling across specific concerns
Kristen Ambrosio, LCSW has nearly 20 years with adolescents, adults, and families, specializing in family conflict, divorce, parenting, and domestic abuse.
Courtney Angeles, LCSW has over 10 years with children and families facing depression, anxiety, trauma, and interpersonal conflict. Often the right fit when a younger child is at the center of things.
Alice Lynch, LSW holds dual master’s degrees in social work and special education and works as a parent coach, with practical help on screen time, classroom engagement, and behavior at home. She also offers premarital counseling.
Denise Munoz, LSW provides trauma-informed family counseling, with a background in in-home services for children and families, domestic violence shelters, and school social work. Licensed in both New Jersey and New York.
Kanan Kapila, LSW works with families, couples, teens, and adults using an integrative, culturally conscious approach that combines CBT, somatic therapy, clinical hypnotherapy, and mindfulness. Fluent in Hindi and Gujarati.
Gavin Warren, LSW has seven years in residential, inpatient, and in-home settings with adults and teens, working from a solutions-oriented and strengths-based approach.
See all clinicians and their specialties
Availability varies, and our client care team will tell you who is currently taking family cases when you call. If you do not click with your clinician, tell us. We will adjust the approach or move you to someone else in the practice, and nobody will take it personally.
Paramus office, or telehealth across New Jersey
Our office is at 15 Farview Terrace, Suite 1, Paramus, NJ 07652, with private off-street parking, a ground-floor entrance, and a private waiting area. Families come to us from Paramus, Hackensack, Teaneck, Ridgewood, Rochelle Park, Waldwick, Fair Lawn, Glen Rock, River Edge, Oradell, Dumont, Englewood, New Milford, and Midland Park. Most arrive in under fifteen minutes.
Office hours are Monday to Thursday 9 AM to 9 PM, Friday 12 to 8 PM, and Saturday 9 AM to 4 PM. Evening and Saturday appointments help families who cannot make weekday hours, though availability varies by clinician.
Secure teletherapy across New Jersey runs on a HIPAA-compliant platform and is available to anyone located in the state. For families this solves a specific problem: getting four schedules, a college student in another town, and a co-parent across the county into the same session. Some work is better done in person, and we will say so if that applies to you.
Get directions to our Paramus office
Why choose Dr Stephen Oreski and Associates
- Clinicians trained in family work: Two licensed marriage and family therapists on staff, plus four more clinicians with formal family systems training. Not individual therapists taking family cases on the side.
- A neutral room: Each family member gets heard, and your clinician’s loyalty is to the relationship rather than to whoever makes the strongest case.
- Clear costs before you commit: You are quoted your exact rate, and your out-of-network benefits are checked, before you book anything.
- Bergen County hours that work: Evenings until 9 PM and Saturday appointments, because getting a whole family into one room on a Tuesday at 2 PM is not realistic.
- A low-pressure start: A 15-minute consultation at no charge, and an honest answer about whether we are the right practice for what you are dealing with.
What it costs
Sessions across the practice range from $60 to $350 depending on the clinician and the service, and you are quoted your exact rate before you commit. We are out of network for most major PPO plans, which means many clients are partially reimbursed. Our client care team will check your benefits and explain your likely reimbursement before you book, and a monthly superbill is provided for your claims. We do not accept Medicaid, Medicare, or NJ FamilyCare, and we will refer you elsewhere if that is your coverage. Limited reduced-fee appointments exist, so ask during the consultation.
Frequently Asked Questions About Family Counseling in Paramus, NJ
How much does family counseling in Paramus cost?
Sessions run $60 to $350 depending on the clinician and the service, and you get an exact quote before booking. We are out of network for most major PPO plans and can help you estimate reimbursement, with a monthly superbill provided for your claims. See our rates and insurance details.
What is the difference between family counseling and family therapy?
In practice, nothing. The terms are used interchangeably by most practices and insurers, including ours, and you get the same care whichever term you searched for.
Does everyone in the family have to attend?
No. Many families start with one or two members, and your clinician will tell you who needs to be in the room and when. Progress is possible even when one person refuses to participate.
Will the therapist take sides?
No. Your clinician’s job is the relationship, not the verdict. Each person gets heard, and the focus stays on the pattern rather than the blame.
Do you offer family counseling for divorced or separating co-parents?
Yes. Co-parenting counseling is one of our most common referrals, including parents who are not looking to repair the relationship. The work focuses on consistency between households and keeping children out of the conflict. For the end of the marriage itself, we also offer divorce therapy.
Can adults attend family therapy with their parents or siblings?
Yes. A good share of our family work involves no minor children at all: adult siblings, adult children and their parents, caregiving disputes, and long-standing conflicts that never got addressed.
Do you offer family therapy throughout New Jersey?
Yes. We see families in person at our Paramus office in Bergen County, and by secure telehealth anywhere in New Jersey. For families spread across more than one town, telehealth is often what makes a shared session possible at all.
Can we do family therapy online if we live elsewhere in New Jersey?
Yes. Secure teletherapy is available to anyone physically located in New Jersey during the session, and family members can join from different locations. Availability varies by clinician and by clinical fit.
Is family therapy confidential when children are involved?
Yes, with the standard legal exceptions for safety. Your clinician explains at the initial intake how information is handled between parents and minor children, and what a child can keep private, before anyone shares anything.
Do you provide family counseling near Hackensack, Ridgewood, and Teaneck?
Yes. Families travel to our Paramus office at 15 Farview Terrace, Suite 1 from across Bergen County, and most arrive in under fifteen minutes. Private off-street parking is available on site, and telehealth covers the rest of New Jersey.
How soon can we start?
Consultation calls are usually available within a day or two, and first appointments typically within the same week. Call (551) 579-4441 for current availability or request an appointment.