Category: Treatments

Searching for a therapist is a strange task, because you are being asked to judge something you cannot see, using a directory listing and a photograph.

It becomes easier once you know which details actually predict a good outcome and which are mostly decoration. Most of the answer sits in three places: what you need, whether they are properly licensed to provide it, and whether it fits after a few sessions.

Start with the shape of the problem

People often begin by searching for a person when the more useful first question is what kind of work they need. The answer changes which credential, which format and which practice makes sense, and it takes about a minute to settle.

Before comparing anybody, get clear on who the client really is. This one decision narrows the search more than any other.

• One person, one internal difficulty — anxiety, low mood, a decision. Individual therapy.
• Two people in a repeating pattern. Couples work, with both in the room.
• A child whose behaviour has changed. Usually child therapy with substantial parent involvement rather than a child seen alone.
• A whole household that has stopped working. Family therapy, where the relationships are the client.

Getting this wrong is the commonest reason therapy stalls. Individual work can run for months while the pattern at home continues untouched.

What the letters after the name mean

Utah licenses several distinct professions that all provide talking therapy. The differences are real but smaller than the alphabet suggests.

A useful rule: if the difficulty lives between people, a relational training such as an LMFT is a natural fit. If a formal diagnostic assessment is the question, a psychologist. If medication is being considered, a psychiatrist — usually in addition to therapy, not instead of it.

You may also see ACMHC, AMFT or CSW. These denote associate-level clinicians working under supervision toward full licensure. That is not a reason to avoid someone — supervision means a second experienced clinician is involved — but it is worth knowing.

Verify the licence yourself

Anyone can describe themselves as a coach, a counsellor or a practitioner. Only a licensed clinician is regulated, insured and accountable to a board, and only a licence can be checked independently in about the time it takes to boil a kettle.

This takes two minutes and almost nobody does it. Utah’s Division of Professional Licensing runs a public licence verification search for Utah professionals.

Search the name and confirm three things: the licence exists, it is currently active, and the type matches what the website claims. A listing that says “therapist” with no credential at all is worth a question.

Cost, insurance and the questions to ask first

Fees vary widely across Utah County and are frequently absent from practice websites. Ask directly, and ask these on the first call rather than after the first session.

• What is the fee, and is there a sliding scale?
• Are you in network with my insurer, or out of network with a superbill I can submit?
• What is the cancellation policy and the notice period?
• How long is the wait, and do you keep a cancellation list?
• Have you worked with this particular difficulty before?

That last one matters more than the biography on the website. Experience with your specific situation is a better signal than a long list of modalities.

Reading a directory listing

Most searches start on a directory, and the listings are written by the therapists themselves. A few things are worth more than others.

• Specificity beats breadth. A profile listing twenty specialisms is telling you less than one that describes three properly.
• Look for how they work, not what they treat. A paragraph describing what a session is actually like is more informative than a list of conditions.
• Check the licence line. Directories usually show credential and state; if a listing does not, ask.
• Ignore the photograph. It tells you nothing you can use.

Waiting times in Utah County

Availability here fluctuates with the academic year, and waits lengthen noticeably in the autumn. Two practical habits help.

Contact two or three practices rather than one, and ask each to put you on a cancellation list as well as the waiting list. Cancellations are common and often go to whoever answers the phone first.

If everyone is full, ask each practice who they would recommend. Therapists generally know who has capacity, and a referral from one practice to another is a normal courtesy rather than an imposition.

Judging fit once you have started

Fit is not whether you like them. Plenty of effective therapy is uncomfortable, and a therapist who only ever agrees with you is not much use.

What you are looking for is whether you feel accurately understood, and whether the work has a direction you can describe.

If something in the right-hand column applies, say it. How a therapist responds to that feedback is itself diagnostic: a good one treats it as useful material, not as a complaint.

Changing therapist is allowed

People stay in a poor fit far longer than they should, usually out of politeness or a worry about starting again.

Raise it once. If nothing changes, moving on is a reasonable clinical decision rather than a failure, and any competent therapist will offer to help you find someone better suited. Asking for a referral is a normal request, not an insult.

If your situation involves a student in Utah County, our guide to campus counseling and private practice for BYU and UVU students covers the trade-offs specific to that. If it involves a couple, our article on what makes marriage counseling work may help you judge what to look for.

Frequently asked questions

Does the type of licence actually matter?

Less than most people expect, once someone is fully licensed. Training focus differs, and an LMFT is trained specifically in relationships and family systems, but fit and experience with your particular difficulty usually matter more than the letters.

How do I check a therapist is really licensed in Utah?

Utah’s Division of Professional Licensing publishes a public licence lookup. Search the name, confirm the licence is current and unrestricted, and check the licence type matches what the practice advertises.

What if I cannot afford the full session fee?

Ask directly about a sliding scale, and ask what the practice charges for a shorter session. Many practices hold a small number of reduced-fee slots that are never advertised on the website.

How many therapists should I contact?

Two or three is sensible. Availability in Utah County varies a lot, and having a second option means a waitlist does not stop you altogether.

How long should I give it before deciding it is not working?

Three or four sessions is a fair test of fit, though not of outcome. If you consistently leave feeling unheard, say so once; if nothing changes after that, changing therapist is a reasonable decision rather than a failure.

If you are weighing up a first appointment, our guide to the questions a therapist asks in a first session sets out what to expect, and our rates and insurance page covers the practical side. You can contact our Orem office with a question, or read about Tim Ponce, LMFT, who works with individuals, couples and families across Utah County.

Couples usually want to know the success rate before they book. It is a reasonable question with an unsatisfying answer: the published figures vary widely, because studies define “improvement” differently and follow couples for different lengths of time.

The more useful finding is that outcomes are not evenly distributed. The same therapist, using the same approach, gets very different results with different couples — and the factors that separate them are largely known, and partly within your control.

Both of you have to actually be in it

This is the single strongest predictor, and it is not the same as both of you attending.

A partner who comes to every appointment, answers questions politely and privately considers the whole thing pointless will cap what any therapist can do. Not because they are being difficult, but because couples work depends on two people being willing to look at their own half of a pattern.

Most couples wait too long

Figures vary, but every clinician recognises the pattern: by the time a couple books, the difficulty is rarely new. It has usually been discussed, avoided, and discussed again for a long stretch first.

The pattern therapists see repeatedly is a couple arriving years after the difficulty started, often after a crisis has forced the issue.

By that point two things have usually happened. The original problem has been overlaid with years of resentment about the problem, and at least one partner has quietly begun to withdraw. Both are workable, but both add time.

Couples who come in while they still basically like each other tend to move faster, and need fewer sessions to get somewhere.

The relationship with the therapist matters more than the method

This surprises couples who have spent weeks comparing acronyms online, and it is one of the more consistent findings in the field.

Couples often shop for a particular model, and the research is fairly consistent that the specific approach matters less than whether both partners trust the person in the chair.

In couples work that trust has a particular requirement: each partner has to believe the therapist is fair. A therapist who appears to side with one of you, even gently and even correctly, loses the other one quickly.

If you feel consistently outnumbered by the third or fourth session, that is worth saying out loud rather than quietly disengaging. A competent therapist will want to know.

What the hour cannot do on its own

Fifty minutes a week is roughly half a percent of a couple’s time together. Nothing that happens in it will outweigh the other ninety-nine and a half percent unless something changes at home.

That is why couples who practise the uncomfortable new behaviour between sessions move noticeably faster. Not homework for its own sake, but attempting the different response in the moment it actually matters — usually badly at first.

Doing it clumsily is the point. Waiting until you can do it well is how couples stay where they are.

How to tell whether it is working

Progress in couples work is rarely a smooth improvement in how you feel. Early on, honest conversations can make things feel temporarily worse.

If several rows in the right-hand column describe you after a couple of months, that is a conversation to have with the therapist rather than a reason to stop. Sometimes the answer is a change of focus; occasionally it is a change of therapist.

If there has been an affair

Infidelity is one of the commonest reasons couples come in, and it changes the sequence of the work rather than ruling it out.

Two things generally have to happen before ordinary couples work can begin. The affair has to be genuinely over, and the therapist has to know about it. Attempting repair while contact continues is the single most reliable way to waste a year.

The early phase is usually about stabilising rather than understanding: what gets disclosed, what does not, how the day-to-day is managed, and how the injured partner’s questions are handled without the relationship becoming an ongoing interrogation.

Understanding how it happened comes later, and it is not the same thing as excusing it. Couples who try to skip the stabilising phase and go straight to explanation usually find the explanation lands as a justification.

When one of you has already decided

Occasionally a couple arrives where one partner has privately decided to leave and is hoping therapy will make the ending easier to justify.

That is worth naming, ideally in the first session. It is not a disqualification — discernment work, where a couple deliberately explores whether to stay or separate, is a legitimate and useful process with a different aim.

What does not work is running standard couples therapy over the top of a decision that has already been made.

Giving yours the best chance

1. Come earlier than feels necessary. The best predictor you control is how much goodwill is left when you start.
2. Agree one shared goal, however small, before the first session.
3. Say the awkward thing in the room. Including doubts about the therapy.
4. Try the new response during the week, badly.
5. Give it a defined review point. Six or eight sessions, then take stock together.

Utah State University Extension publishes free, research-based relationship education resources for Utah couples, which are a reasonable place to start if you want to work on something before booking anything.

Frequently asked questions

How many sessions does marriage counseling usually take?

There is no fixed course. Many couples work weekly for a period of months rather than weeks, and anyone quoting a precise number before meeting you is guessing. What matters more is whether you can point to something that has changed.

Does it work if only one of us wants to go?

It can start that way, and often does. What it cannot do is carry on indefinitely with one partner attending under protest. Reluctance named openly in the room is workable; reluctance concealed usually is not.

Will the therapist decide who is right?

No. A couples therapist works on the cycle between two people rather than adjudicating the content of any particular argument. If you are hoping for a verdict, that expectation is worth raising in the first session.

Is it too late if we have been unhappy for years?

Not automatically, though long-standing resentment takes longer to shift than a recent rupture. The more useful question is whether both of you still want the relationship, not how long it has been difficult.

What if we decide to separate?

Some couples do, and a good process makes that decision clearer and less destructive rather than preventing it. Where children are involved, work on how you will co-parent afterwards is some of the most valuable therapy a family can do.

Our page on marriage counseling in Orem explains how we work with couples, and family counseling covers the situations where more than two people need to be in the room. You can contact the office with a question, or read what a therapist asks in a first session if you want to know what to expect.

A faith transition is rarely a single decision. It is usually a slow accumulation of questions, followed by a period where you carry them privately, followed by the far harder problem of what this means for everyone else.

That second part is where most people get stuck. Not the beliefs themselves, but the marriage, the parents, the Sunday routine and the question of what to say at a family dinner.

The loss that nobody names

When a religious framework shifts, the belief is often the smallest part of what moves. Along with it can go a community, a weekly structure, a shared language with your family, a sense of where you are going, and sometimes the assumption that the people closest to you understand you.

That is a genuine bereavement, even when the change is welcome and freely chosen. People are frequently surprised to feel grief about something they wanted.

Why it lands hardest on the relationships

In a state where extended family, congregation and social life often overlap heavily, a change in belief is rarely a private matter for long. The same people appear at church, at Sunday dinner and in the group chat.

That density is what makes a transition here different from the same change somewhere with looser social ties. There is often no neutral ground to stand on while you work it out.

It also means the disclosure question is not one conversation but many, with different people who will each hear it differently.

Whether, when and how to tell people

There is no obligation to announce anything, and no timetable. What usually helps is deciding deliberately rather than letting it emerge through an argument.

Three questions are worth answering before you say anything:

1. What do I actually want from this conversation? Understanding, permission, practical logistics and simple honesty are different goals and they call for different conversations.
2. What am I prepared to discuss, and what is not up for debate? Deciding this in advance prevents the conversation drifting into a defence of your character.
3. Who needs to hear it from me first? Being told second-hand turns a disclosure into a betrayal for most people.

When one partner transitions and the other does not

This is the situation that brings most couples through the door, and it is more workable than it feels from the inside.

The trap is treating the belief gap as the problem to be solved. Couples who spend a year trying to convince each other usually arrive exhausted and no closer.

What tends to move things is shifting from who is right to how we will actually live: what Sundays look like, what we tell the children, what we say to your mother, and what each of us needs in order not to feel abandoned.

Those are negotiable. Belief generally is not, at least not on demand.

What tends to make it worse

A few moves reliably harden things, and they are easy to make when you are hurt.

Disclosing in the middle of an argument turns a considered decision into a weapon. Explaining your reasoning in detail invites a debate about the reasoning rather than a conversation about the relationship. And presenting it as an ultimatum — accept this or lose me — forces people into a position before they have had time to move on their own.

Most families need months, not one conversation. Leaving room for a slow reaction is usually more effective than pressing for immediate acceptance.

Parents, adult children and the long view

Relationships with parents often go through a bad six months before they settle. The early reaction is rarely the final one.

What predicts a better landing is not the strength of the initial response but whether contact continues through it. Families who keep showing up to ordinary things — birthdays, meals, phone calls about nothing — tend to find the temperature drops on its own.

Withdrawal on either side is what hardens a temporary rupture into a permanent one.

Teenagers in a mixed-belief home

Adolescents in this situation are often quietly managing something adults underestimate: the sense that having an opinion means betraying a parent.

The most protective thing parents can do is say plainly, and more than once, that the young person is not required to pick a side and will not be loved differently either way. Teenagers rarely believe this the first time they hear it.

If you are noticing withdrawal, irritability or a drop in school engagement alongside all this, our guide to telling teenage moodiness from depression may help you judge whether it needs more than time.

What therapy actually does here

A therapist working with a faith transition is not there to adjudicate the belief. The useful work is usually in three places.

• The grief. Giving the loss a name, so it stops leaking out as irritability or numbness.
• The conversations. Rehearsing the difficult ones, and working out what you want from each before you have it.
• The system. Helping a couple or a family renegotiate the practical arrangements without turning every logistic into a referendum.

Because that last piece is relational rather than individual, it often works better as family counseling that brings more than one person into the room, or as marriage counseling where the strain sits mainly between two people.

If grief is the dominant thread, the National Library of Medicine’s overview of bereavement and loss is a reliable plain-language reference for what that process tends to involve.

Frequently asked questions

Is faith transition counseling about talking me out of my beliefs?

No, and a therapist who pushed you in either direction would be doing the job badly. The work is about the relationships, the grief and the identity questions that come with a change, not about arriving at a particular conclusion.

My spouse and I no longer believe the same things. Is that survivable?

Many couples do come through it, and plenty describe the relationship as more honest afterwards. What tends to matter is not whether you agree but whether each of you can tolerate the other holding a different position without treating it as a verdict on the marriage.

Should we tell the children?

Usually something, eventually, in a form that fits their age. Children generally notice the atmosphere before they are told anything, and what they invent to explain it is often worse than the truth.

How do I handle extended family who keep raising it?

Decide in advance what you are willing to discuss and what you are not, and say the boundary once, plainly, rather than re-litigating it each time. Repeating a calm line is more effective than winning an argument.

Do both partners need to attend?

Not necessarily. Some people start individually and bring a spouse in later; some couples begin together. Where the strain is mostly relational rather than internal, seeing you both is usually more productive.

Our page on faith transition support in Orem sets out how we work with this, and you can read about Tim Ponce, LMFT, who sees individuals, couples and families across Utah County. If you would rather ask a question first, you can contact the office directly, or read what a therapist asks in a first session.

Sand tray therapy is the approach parents most often ask about and least often picture correctly. The name suggests a sandbox, which undersells it considerably.

What it involves is a shallow tray of sand, a shelf of small figures, and an invitation to build a scene. What comes out of that is frequently more direct than anything the same person would say out loud.

What sand tray therapy is

The tray is a bounded space. That boundary matters: it makes the task finite and safe, unlike a blank page or an open question.

The person building the scene chooses from a collection of miniatures — people, animals, buildings, vehicles, trees, fences, bridges, and figures representing threat, protection and comfort. There is no correct arrangement.

What happens, step by step

1. Introduction. The therapist explains the tray and the shelf, and makes clear there is no right way to do it. For a child this takes about a minute.
2. Choosing. The person selects figures. Some deliberate for a long time; others sweep an armful off the shelf. Both tell you something.
3. Building. The scene is arranged in the sand. The therapist stays quiet and present rather than commenting as it goes.
4. Noticing. Once it is finished, the therapist asks about it. Often simply “tell me about this part” rather than “what does this mean”.
5. Ending. The tray is photographed in some practices, then cleared. Clearing it is part of the work.

The miniatures, and why choice matters

A well-stocked collection covers whole categories of experience: family, danger, safety, travel, boundaries, nature, fantasy. The range is deliberate.

If a child can only find figures for one kind of experience, the tray cannot represent their life. If the range is wide, what they select becomes meaningful, because they could have chosen otherwise.

Therapists searching for the practical side of this — which sand to use, how to build a collection — are usually looking for professional training resources rather than a guide for families. For parents, the useful thing to know is simply that the choice is wide on purpose.

Why the tray is cleared at the end

Clearing the sand is not tidying up, and it is not done while the person is still in the room in every approach. It marks the end of the piece of work.

Leaving a scene standing would turn it into a permanent statement, which is the opposite of what the tray is for. The point is that something can be built, looked at, and then released, including the difficult parts. Children in particular tend to find the clearing reassuring once they understand it is coming.

Sand tray, play therapy and art therapy compared

The three overlap in practice and are often used with the same person at different points. If you are choosing between approaches for a younger child, our guide to play therapy versus talk therapy for children covers that decision more fully.

What parents expect, and what actually happens

What you will be told afterwards

Parents are usually updated, but not with a transcript. A therapist will normally describe the themes and anything that affects safety or the plan, rather than reporting scene by scene.

That boundary is deliberate. A child who believes the tray will be relayed home in detail builds a tray for the audience rather than for themselves, and the value of the method disappears. If you are unsure what will and will not be shared, ask at the start — a clear answer up front prevents a lot of frustration later.

What if my child builds something upsetting?

This is the question parents ask most often once they understand what the tray is, and the answer tends to reassure them.

Scenes involving burial, conflict, monsters or destruction are common and are not in themselves a cause for alarm. A tray is a safe place to put something precisely because it is not real, and a child who can build a frightening scene is doing the work rather than avoiding it.

What a therapist watches for is not the content of a single tray but the pattern over several: whether anything ever gets rescued, whether help exists in the world the child builds, and whether the scene changes over time. A tray where nothing can be protected, week after week, means something different from a single dramatic battle.

Does it work for adults?

It does, and adults are often the group most surprised by it. The assumption is that a tray of figures is for children, and the first objection is usually that it feels silly.

That objection tends to last about ninety seconds. Adults who have described a difficult experience many times in words often find they build something in the sand that does not match their usual account of it, and the gap between the two is the useful part.

It is used with grief, with trauma where narrating the event is difficult, and with people who have found conversation-based therapy stalls. It is also used with couples, who sometimes build a tray together and discover they were arranging the same space very differently.

Who it tends to help

• Children who go quiet under direct questions but will happily build.
• Adolescents who find eye contact and conversation harder than doing something with their hands.
• Anyone processing an experience they cannot yet narrate, including adults.
• Families in transition — a move, a separation, a bereavement — where the change is easier to show than to describe.

systematic review protocol on sand play for children’s health and development, published in the National Library of Medicine, is a reasonable next read if you want the research background rather than a practitioner’s description.

Frequently asked questions

Is sand tray therapy only for children?

No. It is widely used with adolescents and adults, and is often chosen precisely because it does not require someone to put a difficult experience into words straight away.

How many sessions does sand tray therapy take?

There is no fixed number. Some people build one tray that opens up a conversation they have been circling for months; others build a tray most weeks over a longer period.

Does the therapist interpret what the child builds?

Not in the sense of announcing what it means. The therapist notices, asks about the scene, and lets the meaning come from the person who built it.

What is the difference between sand tray and sandplay?

They come from different traditions. Sandplay is the more formal Jungian method with specific training requirements; sand tray therapy is the broader term used across several approaches. In practice the room looks much the same.

Should we buy a sand tray for home?

There is no need, and a home tray is not a substitute for the therapy. Sand and small figures are excellent play materials and children benefit from them, but what makes the clinical version work is the therapist’s attention and the containment of the session rather than the equipment itself.

If you think this might suit your child, our service page on sand tray therapy in Orem, Utah sets out how we use it, and child therapy at ABC Family Counseling covers the wider picture. You are also welcome to contact the office with a question before booking, or read the questions a therapist asks in a first session.

Most families arrive at a first session braced for an interrogation. They have imagined a clipboard, a silence, and a question nobody wants to answer first.

What actually happens is closer to a conversation. The questions have a purpose, they are asked in a particular order, and knowing that order in advance takes most of the nervousness out of the room.

This guide covers both halves of the exchange: the questions a family therapist is likely to ask you, and the questions worth asking before you commit to working with anyone.

What a family therapist actually asks first

The opening question is nearly always simpler than families expect. Some version of “what brings you all here today?” is standard, and it is deliberately open.

Nobody is required to have the answer polished. Part of what a therapist learns in the first ten minutes is who speaks first, who defers, and who looks at whom before answering.

From there, the questions usually move through four areas: what prompted the call now, how the family is organised day to day, what has already been tried, and what each person would like to be different.

What each person is likely to be asked

The questions are not the same for everyone. A therapist adjusts them by age and by role, so that a seven-year-old is not handed a question built for an adult.

If your child is younger, the work often looks nothing like a question-and-answer session at all. Our page on play therapy for children in Orem explains why play is treated as the child’s language rather than a warm-up to the real work.

What the therapist is doing while you answer

It helps to know that the questions are only half of what is happening. A family therapist is watching the shape of the conversation as much as listening to its content.

Who answers on behalf of someone else. Which topic makes the room go quiet. Whether a child checks a parent’s face before speaking. Whether two people finish each other’s sentences and a third never gets started.

None of that is being judged. It is being noted, because the pattern in the room is usually a small version of the pattern at home, and it is far more reliable than anyone’s account of it.

Three questions families worry about beforehand

“Will we be blamed?” Family therapy examines patterns between people, not fault inside one of them. A therapist asking how an argument usually ends is mapping a loop, not assigning responsibility for it.

“Do we all have to come?” Not necessarily, and not always at the same time. Beginning with the parents is common when the concern is a young child.

“What if my teenager will not talk?” Silence is information, not an obstacle. A teenager who says nothing for a session while their family talks has still told the therapist a great deal.

What happens between the first and second session

Families often expect homework and are surprised when they do not get any. In the first week the more usual request is to notice something rather than change it.

You might be asked to pay attention to when the arguments start rather than to stop having them, or to note the times the problem is absent. That second one catches people out, because the exceptions are easy to miss and are often where the solution already lives.

The questions worth asking a therapist

This is the half most families skip, and it is the half that determines fit. You are allowed to ask these before booking, and a good therapist will expect them.

On that last point, it is worth checking directly with your insurer as well as with the practice. Our session rates and insurance information page sets out what we charge and what to verify before a first appointment.

When the family disagrees about coming at all

It is rare for everyone to arrive equally willing. More often one person made the call and at least one other came under protest.

That is workable, and it is better named than hidden. A therapist would rather hear “I think this is a waste of time” in the first ten minutes than watch someone perform agreement for six weeks. Reluctance stated openly usually softens; reluctance concealed tends to leak out as lateness, silence or cancelled appointments.

How to prepare as a family

1. Agree on one sentence. Before the appointment, see whether everyone can finish “we are going because…”. Disagreement here is useful information to bring with you.
2. Write down two or three questions. Nerves erase them otherwise.
3. Do not rehearse the children. Coaching a child on what to say removes the thing the therapist most needs to see.
4. Bring the practical details. Any previous therapy, current medication, and relevant school reports.
5. Expect the first session to end unresolved. The aim is a shared starting point, not a solution.

Where different concerns tend to lead

The questions in a first session usually point toward a particular kind of work. Where a child’s behaviour at home is the concern, that often means child therapy alongside the parents. Where the pressure sits with an adolescent, it more often means therapy for teenagers and their families.

Where the pattern belongs to the household as a whole, the work stays with family counseling in Orem. If you are weighing up which approach suits a younger child, our comparison of play therapy and talk therapy for children goes through that decision in detail.

The American Psychological Association guidance on families and relationships is a useful companion read if you are comparing practitioners or approaches.

Frequently asked questions

How long does the first family therapy session last?

Most first sessions run about 50 minutes. That is usually enough to hear from everyone briefly and agree on a starting point, but not enough to solve anything, and it is not meant to be.

Does the whole family have to attend the first session?

Not always. Sometimes it is more useful to begin with the parents, or with one person, and bring others in once there is a direction. Ask when you book, because the answer depends on what is going on.

What if my child refuses to answer any questions?

That is common and it is not a failure. A therapist working with children will use play, drawing or sand tray work rather than direct questions, because those are the ways younger children actually communicate.

Will the therapist take sides or blame the parents?

Family therapy looks at patterns between people rather than at fault in one person. The questions are designed to map how the family works, not to identify who is at fault.

What if it becomes clear the therapist is not the right fit?

Say so, ideally to them. Fit matters more than technique in family work, and a competent therapist would far rather have that conversation and refer you on than have a family quietly stop attending. Raising it is not rude and it does not undo the sessions you have already had.

If you have a question this has not covered, our full FAQ for family therapy goes further, or you can contact the Orem office and ask directly. You can also read more about Tim Ponce, the Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who would be answering.