With all the demands that life makes of us it can be hard to make a family work in everyones best interests. Nevertheless, that is what a family must do, meet everyones primary needs for safety and satisfaction, physically, psychologically and emotionally. Then there are the demends of career, school, extended family and our community of friends and neighbors. Sometimes, it is just too much. Our daily life can create major stressors for even the most stoic among us. Simply finding time to check-in with each other, to share our thoughts and feelings can seem impossible and compete with the need to protect each other from hurt and disappointment. Children often take on emotional burdens that they are not yet ready to carry and adults feel the internal conflicts of the need for self-expression versus the demands of their familial responsibilities. When combined with an illness, a crisis, a death or a chronic difficulty such as a developmental or behavioral problem, depresion or anxiety, the structure of family life can begin to break down and the executive role of parents can weaken under the strain. Unresolved pain from ones family of origin can disrupt current family life. Family therapy is an effort to restore the balance by identifying the challenges that families face, uncovering the source of limitations to creative problem solving and colllaboration and strengthening the bonds that help the family to function more easily. Special attention is paid to the specific developmental needs of children and where appropriate accurate diagnosis of children or adults may lead to a recommendation of individual treatment.