Lepage Associates has been offering reunification therapy since we opened over 20 years ago.
Reunification Therapy is a form of family therapy designed to repair a rift between a parent and child. Sometimes the rift is to the extent a child is completely refusing to see or speak with a parent; other times there is some contact, but it is minimal in quantity and/or emotionally distant in quality. Reunification therapy is most commonly court-ordered during or after divorce when there have been allegations of parental alienation, gatekeeping, or has been a prolonged period of absence of a parent from a child’s life for any reason. It can also be entered voluntarily without any court order. The goal of reunification therapy is, as the name implies, to repair the relationship of a parent and child who have become disconnected in some way.
Our research-based approach includes two hallmarks for success recommended by the research. (1) As a large group practice, we are able to offer a full team model in-house with doctors highly trained in reunification therapy, and create a team on a case-by-case basis designed for your specific family and situation. Research suggests not only should the parent and child with the rift be involved in therapy, the ‘favored parent’ should also be included in the reunification therapy process. At times an individual therapist for the ‘disenfranchised parent’ or the child may also be helpful, as might co-parenting therapy. Your reunification therapist will assess your unique situation with you and come up with a treatment team and treatment plan specific to your family and areas needing improvement. (2) Since the practice opened we have always noted we offer ‘solution-based psychological services.’ Not surprising to us, effective reunification therapy has foundations in a solution-based approach. Rather than focus on ‘who’ created the problem, we engage all family members to be part of the solution; you do not have to have been ‘part of the problem’ to be an important part of the solution.
Our commitment to excellence in reunification therapy is strong. Several clinicians at Lepage Associates have taken a semester-long college course on Reunification Therapy. Though that course is no longer taught, we use those materials and others, along with our own experience, to train our newer therapists in RT. We have been doing reunification therapy for almost 20 years and have a wealth of experience to draw on.