Families facing change

Every family has its own particular balance, one that nourishes and sustains. But life means change, and sometimes that balance breaks.

Some events do not happen to just one person, but to the whole family. An illness, a loss, a child entering adolescence, the prospect of divorce: each of these changes the way the family works, who looks after whom, who speaks and who stays silent, what can be said and what remains unsaid. Most of the time, families cope surprisingly well with shocks, but the psychological cost of change often remains unseen and, for that reason, unhealed. Putting it into words, together, is the first step towards a new balance.

Areas of work

The child

In a family organised around difficulties and emergencies, there is almost always one child who “shouts” and one who is said to be “fine”, because they understood early on that their parents have no room for one more worry. Each of them deserves a space in which they can say what has no room at home. Children carry, without knowing it, their parents’ unspoken worries, and parents sometimes see in their child a part of themselves they cannot accept. It helps for parents to come on their own as well, so that these dynamics can be brought into awareness. The child →

The adolescent

Adolescence is the time when the child begins to separate, and the family has to learn to let them go without losing them. Conflicts, silences, closed doors are often signs of this separation, not of failure. For parents, their child’s adolescence can reawaken their own adolescence, with everything that was left unfinished in it. To the adolescent I offer a space of their own, separate from their parents; to the parents, a place where they can understand their own unease. The adolescent →

A different way of being: neurodivergence and giftedness

ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and giftedness too, do not concern only the child: they change the way the family lives and sees itself. Parents swing between worry, guilt and exhaustion, and siblings may feel left in the shadows. Counselling helps the family understand the child’s different way of functioning and make room for it, without the child becoming either the “problem” or the “pride” of the household. Neurodivergence → · Giftedness →

Illness in the family

The diagnosis of a chronic illness, in a child or in a parent, is given to the whole family. It rewrites routines, sleep, the couple’s relationship and the way each person finds their place. Fear, vigilance and guilt are shared out among the members of the family. The doctor takes care of the treatment; what happens psychologically to the parents, the child and the siblings remains, more often than not, unspoken. Type 1 diabetes →

The parental couple

A parental couple can function impeccably as a logistics team and, at the same time, have lost each other as a couple. Or the parents may organise themselves entirely around the children, giving up their space and their identity as a couple. Children need parents who support each other, but also a space that belongs to the two of them, in which the children have no place. A living couple frees the child from the task of keeping their parents together; and the fact that the parents have a bond of their own, from which the child is absent, teaches the child that they can be left out without being lost, and gradually helps them to look at themselves and to think for themselves. The bond between the parents, however weak, remains important for the child even when the parents are separated. That is why I also work with separated parents, to help them cope with the difficulties of parenting from two homes and to support their child’s healthy development. Couples counselling → · Divorce →

Divorce

How to tell the children, what the child’s place is between two parents, how to remain parents without still being partners. Children suffer less from the separation itself and more from the conflict that continues after it, especially when they become its messengers or witnesses. Divorce →

Grief and loss

The death of a family member, but also the losses that have no name: a separation, lost health, the healthy child we had imagined, the parent who is still alive but no longer recognises us. Each member of the family grieves at a different pace, and these different paces can themselves become a source of conflict. Children grieve too, but differently from adults; sometimes they stay silent to protect their parents. Grief and loss →

Living abroad

Moving to another city or another country, life between two places, the loss of connections, sudden financial changes. These are situations that require the family to find a new arrangement, usually without having the time it needs, and what is lost along the way, a place, a language, a closeness, often leaves behind sorrows that need healing. Living abroad →

If you recognise yourself here, write to me →

Who it is for

• Parents and parental couples — individually or together, for feelings that have nowhere else to be spoken
• Adolescents — for separation, for their relationship with their own body and with others
• Children — children who shout too loudly to be heard, and those who stay silent too much, often remaining in the background

What my experience is made of

I am a clinical psychologist licensed in Romania (reg. no. 36518) and a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in training.

How it works

1. Write to me using the form below or by email. A few lines are enough; there is no need to explain everything.
2. I reply within 1–2 working days and we arrange the time of the first meeting together.
3. The first meeting, 45 minutes long, at the practice or online, is devoted to understanding the situation. Only then do we decide together whether and how to continue.

The framework

Sessions last 45 minutes and take place at the practice or online. The first meeting is devoted to understanding the family’s situation and agreeing together on the right way of working: individually, as a couple, or alternating. Fees: 250 lei per session; 200 lei per session for families facing a child’s chronic illness.

First meeting

Write me a few lines about what brings you. There is no need to explain everything.

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Your details are used only to reply to you. There is no need to write at length or to give me personal details. Privacy policy

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Or write to me directly at radutudorache@protonmail.com.

Psychological intervention accompanies medical treatment; it does not replace it.