Seven
LICENSED CLINICIANS
60-minute
SESSIONS
$150
SELF-PAY
Free
15-MINUTE CALL
Plans we work with: Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, DMBA, EMI Health, PEHP, SelectHealth, UMR, UnitedHealthcare and University of Utah Health Plans, with TRICARE coming soon. Family work is usually billed under one family member's benefit with a diagnosis attached to that person. We explain exactly how that works on the free call, and we check your plan while you are on the line.
WHY FAMILIES CALL
Most families arrive with one person already elected
The kid who is failing. The teenager who slams the door. The one everybody tiptoes around at dinner. Often that person is carrying something the whole household is doing, and putting them alone in a room for an hour a week will not shift it.
Family therapy puts more of the system in the room. Sometimes that is both parents and a fifteen year old. Sometimes one parent and one kid. Sometimes two adult siblings who have not said anything real to each other since a funeral.
WHAT WE SEE MOST
What families come in for
Six of the most common reasons. You do not have to fit the list to call.
What we see
What it looks like
A teenager who has gone quiet
A teenager who has stopped talking and nobody can work out when it started.
Two houses
Divorce, remarriage, and a version of parenting that has to function across two houses and two sets of rules.
Anxiety running the house
A child with anxiety whose family has quietly reorganized itself around avoiding the thing that sets it off.
Grief, out of step
Grief that landed on everyone differently and left the house out of step with itself.
A parent and an adult child
A parent and an adult child trying to build something back after years of not much.
Conflict that frightens someone
Conflict that has gotten loud enough that somebody in the house is frightened.
HOW THE WORK GOES
Two bodies of work, doing different jobs
Emotionally Focused Therapy, developed by Sue Johnson and Les Greenberg, gets at what sits underneath the reaction. It is the part that answers why the same argument keeps happening even though everybody agrees it is stupid.
Gottman informed structure handles the daily part. Emotion coaching, boundaries that actually hold, and repair after a blowup. Blowups will still happen. What matters is what the house does in the twenty minutes afterwards.
A teenager who yells is usually not primarily angry. A parent who lectures is usually frightened.
When a family can hear the fear instead of the volume, the fight changes shape. That is most of what the first month is for.
WHAT TO EXPECT
What families expect, and what actually happens
Most of what keeps a family from calling is a picture of therapy where somebody loses.
What families expect
What actually happens
The therapist will decide who is right.
Your therapist is looking for the cycle, not the culprit. Nobody neutral is going to declare a winner.
Everyone has to be on board before we start.
One parent calling is enough. Getting the rest of the household into the room is part of the work, not a prerequisite for it.
The kid is the patient.
The whole system is in the room. Most of the change comes from a parent trying something different at home on an ordinary Tuesday.
It will turn into a shouting match.
Blowups happen. Your therapist keeps the room safe and then works on the twenty minutes afterwards, which is where repair gets learned.
It goes on for years.
The first month is about hearing the fear instead of the volume. After that, you and your therapist decide together how long to keep going, and you are allowed to ask.
THE FIRST SESSION
Everyone who is coming, comes
Your therapist will ask each person, including the teenager who made it clear in the car that they did not want to be there, what they would change if they could change exactly one thing. Teenagers almost always have an answer.
Nobody will be asked to relitigate the last fight. Your therapist is looking for the cycle, not the culprit, and if you came hoping somebody neutral would finally declare a winner, that will not happen.
What the first call covers
What has been going on at your house, in whatever words you have for it.
Who would be in the room, and what your week can hold.
Your insurance, checked while you are on the line, with the copay figure said out loud.
If nobody here is the right fit, we will say so and point you somewhere else in Utah County. That is a better outcome for your family than six wasted weeks.
Most families start weekly. By session three or four you should have a working direction, and every person in the room should be able to say what it is.
PARENTS
You are not here to be graded
This is not a place where you drop a kid off and wait to find out what you did wrong. Most of the change we see comes from a parent trying something different at home on an ordinary Tuesday, so your therapist will spend real time with you on what that something is.
We also run Gottman parenting groups by age band. Parents do those alongside family sessions or entirely on their own.
Emily Scoffield is a Utah approved supervisor and has spent twenty years with complex adolescents and families. Brittany Taggart, Kristen Morgan and Aubree Stock all see families, and Aubree has worked in Utah's child welfare system since 2016. Brian Austin is an AAMFT Approved Supervisor, is Gottman Level 2 trained, and sees couples.
Emily Scoffield, LCSW · Children (6+), Teens, Adults, Couples, Families
Brittany Taggart, LCSW · Children (6+), Teens, Adults, Couples, Families
Aubree Stock, CSW · All Ages, Couples, Families
Brian Austin, LCSW · Teens (16+), Adults, Older Adults, Couples
If you already know who you want, ask for them by name. If you do not, that is exactly what the fifteen minute call is for.
WHAT IT COSTS
What it costs
Sessions run 60 minutes. Self-pay is $150 regardless of how many people are in the room.
On insurance, family work is generally billed under one family member's mental health benefit with a diagnosis attached to that person. That is the standard rule rather than something we invented, and we will tell you exactly how your plan handles it before your first session.
Good Faith Estimate
If you are uninsured or paying out of pocket, federal law gives you the right to a written estimate of what your care will cost before it starts. Ask us for one and we will put it in writing. Read how it works.