“I operate from a bone-deep belief that as long as there is breath in your lungs, transformation is possible.”
Welcome! So you’re here for a snippet of my story. Professionally, I’m a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, author, and speaker. I’m a member of a group therapy practice, Systemic Solutions Counseling Center. Outside of that, I wear many hats, including wife, mother, daughter in a blending family, and lover of the many adventures God has afforded to me. I generally hang with children, though you may also find me in a bookstore, or on the beach.
I earned my master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy and my undergraduate degree in Psychology from Nova Southeastern University. My experience encompasses working with diverse populations to overcome a myriad of problems that brought them to my couch. I find that change may be actualized by creating shifts that disarm the forces working against achieving your goals.
My specialty is blending families – step-families, foster families, kinship families, just about any family in which one or more of the parents are not the child(ren)’s biological parent. For me, the shift from blended to blending was born out of a conversation I had with a good friend and stepmom. (She writes more about it here). The shift challenges the notion that there is some arrival point where blending family dynamics will just take care of itself. Rather, the ing reminds us that it is an intentional relationship that requires (like anything that matters) intentional care.
Andrea Phillips, LMFT 