When History Keeps Repeating
Breaking Cycles in Couples and Families
Maybe you swore you would never argue the way your parents did, and now you hear their words in your own mouth. Whitney Harper, LPC, helps couples and families see the cycles that keep repeating and change them.
Whitney is not accepting new clients at this time. For couples and family work, the office can match you with Demetria Flowers or Lyndsay Dawson.
What a Cycle Looks Like
A cycle is a pattern that plays out again and again, even when everyone wishes it would stop. One person pushes, the other pulls away. One person gets loud, the other goes quiet. Over time, the pattern starts to feel like the relationship itself.
Many cycles started long before the current relationship. They are learned in childhood, passed down through families and carried into marriages and parenting without anyone choosing them.
Nobody in a cycle is the bad guy. Each person is usually reacting to the other in ways that made sense at some point. Seeing it that way takes some of the blame out of the room and makes change feel possible.
How Whitney Helps You See It
Whitney is a Licensed Professional Counselor and the Clinical Director of Restorative Peace, with 9 years in counseling. She looks at the whole person, spiritual, physical, emotional and mental, and at the whole system around them.
In sessions, she helps couples and families slow down a familiar argument and notice what each person is feeling and protecting. Once you can see the cycle, you can step out of it.
From there, the work gets practical. Whitney helps you agree on what to try differently the next time the pattern starts, then you come back and talk about how it went. Over a few weeks, those small experiments add up.
Patterns Whitney Often Works With
Couples and families come to Whitney with patterns like these:
- Pursue and withdraw in a marriage
- Anger that flares and then gets swept away
- Parenting the way you were parented, without meaning to
- Grief or trauma that changed how a family relates
- Old hurts between adult children and parents
Sessions by Secure Video
Everyone joins by secure video and needs to be located in Texas during sessions. Evening and weekend appointments are available, which helps when several people are coordinating schedules.
Family members can even join from different homes, which makes it easier to include grown children or relatives across the state.
Clinicians for This
Demetria FlowersLPC Associate, MAPractices under the supervision of a Licensed Professional Counselor-Supervisor (LPC-S).
Lyndsay DawsonLPC Associate, MAPractices under the supervision of a Licensed Professional Counselor-Supervisor (LPC-S).
Debbie VidanaGraduate Counselor InternPractices under the supervision of a Licensed Professional Counselor-Supervisor (LPC-S).
Common Questions
- Can we break a cycle that goes back generations?
- Patterns that go back a long way can still change. The work usually starts with noticing the pattern in the present, then understanding where it came from.
- Does Whitney see couples or whole families?
- Both. Whitney works with couples and families, as well as teens, adults and older adults in individual sessions.
- What if the cycle involves anger?
- Whitney also specializes in anger management, so she can help with anger that shows up inside a relationship pattern.
Ready to Begin?
The pattern does not have to be passed on. Reach out and we will match you with a clinician on our team.