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Trinity
727-203-3770 | Email | Directions
Safety Harbor
727-725-8820 | Email | Directions
St. Petersburg
727-900-7014 | Email | Directions
Family Therapy in St. Petersburg, FL
Family therapy in St. Petersburg, FL is one of the services this practice was built around, and it has been part of our work since 1992. Family Psychology Associates is a private psychology practice serving Tampa Bay, and family is literally in our name. When a household is stuck in the same argument for the tenth time, or when two people who love each other have stopped speaking, the work of untangling that pattern is what we do.
Families come to us at very different points. Some arrive during an obvious crisis, and some arrive after years of a slow drift they cannot quite name. Others come because one person is struggling and everyone around them is exhausted from trying to help. All of those are reasonable reasons to make the call.
We see families at our offices in St. Petersburg, Safety Harbor and Trinity, and by secure video anywhere in Florida. Appointments are available six days a week and four nights a week, which matters when you are trying to find one hour that works for three or four schedules at once.
Clinically reviewed by Geoffrey Peal, Psy.D., Licensed Psychologist | Last updated August 20, 2026 | Family Psychology Associates has served Tampa Bay since 1992.
What Brings Families to Therapy
The most common reason a family calls is conflict that has stopped resolving on its own. The topic may be curfew, money, chores, a partner’s family of origin or a decision about a parent’s care, but the shape of the fight is usually familiar to everyone in it. People know exactly what the other person will say, and they say their own lines anyway.
Transitions bring families in just as often. A move, a job loss, a divorce, a new stepparent, a child leaving for college, a diagnosis, a death. Each of these asks a family to reorganize, and reorganizing is hard even when the change itself is a good one. Grief in particular tends to land unevenly, and we often work alongside our grief and loss counseling services when a family is reeling from a death.
Sometimes one person’s difficulty pulls the whole system in. A teenager who has stopped going to school, an adult child in recovery, a parent whose memory is slipping. The family organizes itself around that person, and after a while nobody has room left for anything else.
And sometimes the presenting problem is silence. Estrangement, cutoff, a relationship that has narrowed to holiday texts. That is family work too, and it is more common than most people realize.
What We Are Seeing in Our Family Caseload Right Now
Estrangement between adult children and parents. This is one of the fastest growing reasons families reach out to us. Adult children call wanting help deciding how much contact is sustainable. Parents call bewildered, hurt and unsure what they are being asked to acknowledge. We work with either side, and sometimes with both in the room. The goal is not always reconciliation on a schedule. Often it is clarity, a repair attempt made carefully, and a way to live with the outcome.
Blended families and stepfamilies. Two households merging is not one adjustment but several running at once: discipline authority, loyalty binds for the kids, money, holidays, and the ex-spouse who is still a permanent part of the picture. Stepfamilies often assume they are failing when they are simply early. Most of the friction we see is structural rather than a sign that anyone chose wrong.
Co-parenting after divorce. Parents who are no longer partners still have decades of shared decisions ahead. We help build the working relationship that makes those decisions possible, including handoffs, communication that does not reopen the marriage, and consistency between homes.
Caregiving strain across generations. Adults in Pinellas and Pasco counties are frequently managing an aging parent’s care while still raising their own children. Siblings disagree about how much is enough, one person carries most of it, and resentment builds quietly. Our caregiver support services and our work with older adults and seniors often sit alongside the family sessions.
How Family Therapy Works Here
The first appointment is a conversation, not an intervention. We ask who is in the family, what the current problem looks like from each person’s seat, what has already been tried, and what a better version of the next six months would look like. Nobody is put on trial in the first hour.
Who attends depends on the problem. Sometimes it is everyone. Sometimes it is the two parents only, because the fastest route to a calmer house runs through the adults. Sometimes it is a parent and one adult child, or two adult siblings deciding together about a parent’s care. Composition often changes over the course of treatment, and that is by design.
Sessions are usually structured around a small number of concrete goals. We slow down the recurring argument enough to see its parts, name the roles people have fallen into, and practice a different move while the clinician is there to help. Between sessions there is usually something specific to try at home.
Frequency varies. Many families start weekly or every other week and spread sessions out as things stabilize. Evening and Saturday availability makes it realistic to keep a rhythm going when both parents work, and telehealth lets a family member who lives in Tampa, Trinity or New Port Richey join without a drive.
Parenting-Focused Work and Parent Management Training
A significant share of our family work is done with parents rather than with the whole family in the room. When the concern is a younger child’s behavior, the most effective lever is usually the adults. Parent management training is a structured, skills-based approach to exactly this.
The work is practical. We look at what happens immediately before and after a difficult behavior, how instructions are given, how attention is distributed across the day, and how consequences are set and actually followed through. Parents practice the skills in session and then run them at home, and we troubleshoot what did not go as planned the following week.
Parents often arrive worried that this will be a lecture about what they have done wrong. It is not. Most of the families we meet are doing a great deal right under difficult conditions, and the adjustments that help are usually small and specific rather than sweeping.
We also work with parents on the harder judgment calls: how much independence a particular child is ready for, how to hold a limit when the other parent disagrees, how to respond to a child’s anxiety without accidentally reinforcing it. When avoidance is the central pattern, this often runs alongside anxiety treatment for the child.
When One Family Member's Needs Shape the Plan
Frequently a family arrives because of one person, and the right plan includes individual work for that person plus family sessions around it. We coordinate rather than choosing one or the other.
With younger children, play-based and developmentally matched individual work usually pairs with regular parent sessions. Our child therapy in St. Petersburg is built to run this way.
With adolescents, the balance shifts. Teenagers need enough privacy to speak honestly and enough parental involvement that changes actually hold at home. Our teen therapy services keep both, with clear expectations about what is shared and what is not.
With emerging adults, the family question is often about launching: money, school, living at home, and how much support is support rather than a substitute for growth. That is common ground in our young adult therapy work, and family sessions are frequently where the actual terms get negotiated.
Attention and executive functioning concerns deserve a mention of their own, because they are so often misread as defiance or laziness inside a family. When that is a live question, an evaluation and treatment plan through our ADHD services can change the entire conversation at home.
Family Therapy Alongside Individual and Couples Work
Family therapy is rarely the only thing happening. A parent may be in individual therapy for depression while the family meets twice a month. A couple may be doing their own work on the marriage while also meeting with a teenager and a clinician. These tracks support each other when they are coordinated.
When the marriage or partnership is the strained joint holding everything else up, relationship counseling is often the more direct route, and family sessions come later or run in parallel.
Because we are a practice of more than twenty licensed clinicians, we can usually keep this coordination inside one group. Family members may see different clinicians here, with appropriate consent, and those clinicians can stay aligned on the plan rather than working in separate directions.
We are also clear about what we do not want to create. Family therapy should not become a second front where the same fight continues with a referee. If sessions are being used that way, we say so and restructure them.
Who Provides Family Therapy at Our Practice
Family work here is provided by licensed psychologists, licensed mental health counselors and licensed clinical social workers. Systemic training varies by discipline and by clinician, and our intake staff matches families based on the presenting concern, the ages involved, availability and location.
You can see backgrounds and specialties on our clinician profiles. If the fit is not right after the first session or two, tell us. Changing clinicians within the practice is a routine request, not an awkward one, and it is far better than quietly stopping.
We see families across Tampa Bay from three offices. Our St. Petersburg office at 5628 Central Avenue serves most of southern Pinellas County. Families from Clearwater and the mid-county area often prefer our Safety Harbor location, and families in Pasco County typically use our Trinity office, which is convenient from New Port Richey.
When schedules or geography make in-person sessions difficult, online counseling is available anywhere in Florida, and it works particularly well for family sessions where members live in different towns.
Frequently Asked Questions About Family Therapy
No. Who attends is a clinical decision we make with you, and it often changes as the work goes on. Some families meet all together, some sessions are parents only, and some are one parent with one adult child. What matters is that the people who can actually influence the pattern are in the room. We would rather start with whoever is willing than wait for perfect attendance.
That happens often, and it does not have to stop the work. Change in one part of a family tends to shift the rest of it, so meaningful progress is possible even when someone declines to participate. We can help you adjust how you respond, what you ask for and where you hold a limit. Many reluctant family members join later, once they see that sessions are not an ambush.
Individual therapy focuses on one person’s symptoms, history and coping. Family therapy treats the relationships themselves as the focus, looking at patterns of communication, roles, alliances and repeated cycles of conflict. The two work well together, and many of our clients do both. If you are unsure which fits your situation, our intake staff can talk it through before you schedule anything.
It depends on the goal. Focused work, such as smoothing a co-parenting handoff or building a discipline plan two adults can agree on, may take a handful of sessions. Longer standing estrangement, entrenched conflict or a family adjusting to serious illness usually takes longer. Many families start weekly or biweekly and then space sessions out as things steady. Your clinician will review progress with you regularly rather than leaving it open ended.
Yes. We offer secure video sessions anywhere in Florida, and family work is one of the places telehealth genuinely helps. Adult siblings in different cities can join the same session, a parent traveling for work can attend, and a college student can be included without a trip home. Some families mix formats, meeting in person when they can and by video when schedules make that impossible. Ask the front office if a video session would make attendance easier.
Coverage varies by clinician and by plan, so we do not want to guess. Our front office verifies your benefits before your first appointment and tells you what to expect for cost, including any deductible or copay, so there are no surprises after the session. If you would like that checked before you commit to scheduling, just ask when you call. Our new client information page walks through the intake steps.
Related Support
Families often need more than one kind of help at once. You may also want to read about couples and relationship counseling, therapy for teens, support for caregivers, or our Clearwater area services. If you are ready to begin, our new client page explains what happens next.
Where We See Teens
St. Petersburg
5628 Central Ave, First Floor, St. Petersburg, FL 33707
727-900-7014
Convenient to downtown St. Pete, Kenwood, Pasadena, Gulfport, St. Pete Beach, and the Pinellas beaches.
Safety Harbor
801 2nd Street North, Suite 7, Safety Harbor, FL 34695
727-725-8820
Minutes from Clearwater, Palm Harbor, Dunedin, Largo, and Oldsmar.
Trinity
10751 Maple Creek Drive, Trinity Professional Place, Building 8, Suite 101, Trinity, FL 34655
727-203-3770
Minutes from New Port Richey, Holiday, Tarpon Springs, East Lake, and Keystone.
Telehealth appointments are available to families anywhere in Florida. Appointments are available six days a week and four nights a week.
Our Clinical Standards
Every clinician at Family Psychology Associates holds a current Florida license as a psychologist, mental health counselor, or clinical social worker. Content on this page reflects clinical approaches currently used by our practice and is reviewed by FPA clinical leadership. It is written for general education and is not a substitute for individualized clinical consultation.
If your child or teen is in crisis, having thoughts of harming themselves, or in immediate danger, call or text 988 (the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline), go to your nearest emergency room, or call 911.