Family Conflict
Why Couples & Families Trust Dr. Samuel
Dr. Samuel Lord provides a unique blend of clinical expertise and advanced neurofeedback to help families and couples navigate their most challenging seasons. Based in Vancouver, our practice is dedicated to restoring harmony and fostering emotional resilience through evidence-based care. Call (604) 721 0604 for your free 20-minute consultation.Who you’re talking to
I’m Samuel Ezzatilord, PhD, RCC, CCC, LMCC. Over 25 years I’ve worked with trauma, anxiety, and relationships — from Red Crescent refugee camps and veterans’ clinics to community mental health here in Vancouver. I won’t be shocked by what you bring me, and I won’t rush you.
As an Iranian-Canadian clinician working in both English and Farsi, I understand the weight of آبرو, the pull between cultures, and how hard it can be to say “I need help” out loud. We go at your pace, find what’s really driving things, and work through it together.
And no — your problem doesn’t need to be a crisis to belong here. Most of the people Samuel sees are simply tired, stuck, or quietly carrying something heavy.
What happens when you call?
1
You call or text.Dr. Samuel answers personally. No secretary, no forms, no gatekeeping.
2
You talk — 20 minutes, free.Ask anything: fees, insurance, whether this approach fits you. Completely confidential.
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You decide.Book a first session — or don’t. Either way you leave with clarity and zero obligation.
Fees and expenses are covered by ICBC, CVAP, FNHA, IFHP, RCMP, VAC, and most other insurers, and direct billing is available.
Most people who reach out here don’t feel ready to talk on the phone. Start whichever way feels safest.
Text me what’s going onThe message is already written — just press send. I reply personally: usually within a few hours, always within 24.
- “Providing specialized therapeutic care in Vancouver since 2008, helping families navigate complex emotional landscapes with evidence-based therapy and deep clinical insight.“
Clinical Excellence
15+ Years Experience “A dedicated track record of success in resolving high-conflict situations and restoring harmony within domestic spheres through structured, compassionate intervention.“
Proven Outcomes
500+ Couples Helped
“Integrating state-of-the-art neurofeedback techniques with traditional counselling to effectively address ADHD, focus issues, and emotional regulation for lasting impact.“
Advanced Care
98% Satisfaction
How We Help Couples & Families Find Their Way Back
A clinical framework for establishing healthy limits, fostering mutual respect, and restoring emotional balance within your family system.
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Safe Space First
Before anything can be said, both of you need to feel safe saying it. We build that foundation before anything else.
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Understanding What’s Really Happening
Most conflicts aren’t about what they seem. We help you identify the real source of disconnection beneath the arguments.
3
New Ways of Being Together
Communication tools tailored to your specific dynamic — not generic scripts. What works for one couple doesn’t work for every couple.
4
Rebuilding Trust & Intimacy
The goal isn’t just to stop fighting. It’s to genuinely want to be close again — and to have the tools to stay that way.
One free 20-minute call. No forms. No waiting lists. Just a direct conversation with Dr. Samuel about where you are and whether he can help. Available in English and Farsi.
Couples who reach out earlier have more to work with. Don’t wait until it feels too late.
Begin Your Journey to Restorative Healing
We support you through: • Family conflict • Stress • Low mood • Relationship issues • Trauma • Grief • Life transitions. We provide restorative empathy for your healing journey. ما برای حمایت از شما در مسیر بهبودی و آرامش اینجا هستیم.
Call for FREE: (604) 721 0604Frequently Asked Questions — Couples & Family Conflict
Does Samuel provide couples and family therapy in Vancouver?
Yes. Samuel offers couples and family therapy in person at 1300–1500 West Georgia Street in downtown Vancouver and by secure video across BC. Couples and family conflict is the largest part of his practice and the first of his three headline specialties, alongside trauma (EMDR) and ADHD (neurofeedback training).
What does a couples or family therapy session cost?
Fees and expenses are covered by ICBC, CVAP, FNHA, IFHP, RCMP, VAC, and most other insurers, and direct billing is available. Samuel bills as a Registered Clinical Counsellor, so most extended health plans apply; the specifics of your plan are confirmed on the free 20-minute call.
How long does couples therapy usually take?
Most couples see meaningful change within 8 to 16 weekly sessions, then space sessions out. Samuel builds the work on the Gottman Method and Internal Family Systems (IFS), adding emotion-focused elements where attachment injuries are the core issue. Couples arriving after years of gridlock, or after an affair, usually need longer; the length is agreed together and reviewed openly.
Do you work with same-sex and non-monogamous couples?
Yes. Samuel works with couples of all orientations and relationship structures, including open and non-monogamous relationships, with a culturally sensitive, non-judgmental approach. The methods are the same; nothing about your relationship is treated as the problem unless you say it is.
Do you see families together, not just couples?
Yes. Samuel works with individuals, couples and whole families — parent–teen conflict, adult children and parents who have stopped talking, blended families, and multigenerational households where two cultures’ rules collide. Sessions may include everyone, sub-groups, or one member at a time, depending on where the pattern lives.
What counts as ‘family conflict’ that therapy can help with?
Anything that keeps repeating and leaves people hurt: constant arguments between partners, a teenager who has gone silent or explosive, adult children and parents cutting contact, in-laws shaping the marriage, siblings at war over an ageing parent, or a household where one person’s anxiety, ADHD or drinking has everyone walking on eggshells. If it recurs and nobody knows how to stop it, it is a pattern — and patterns are what family therapy treats.
Do we all have to come to family therapy?
No. Family therapy works with whoever is willing. Often it starts with one or two members and others join once they see the tone at home change. Samuel decides with you who should be in which session; children and teens are only included when the session is built for them, and never asked to take sides.
Can family conflict therapy help when a parent and adult child are estranged?
Yes. Estrangement is one of the most common reasons families contact the practice, especially in immigrant families where the parents’ and children’s expectations were formed in different countries. Repair is possible when at least one side is willing to hear the other’s account without defending. Samuel wrote about how that repair actually goes in this post.
Are family and couples sessions available in Farsi?
Yes. Every couples and family service is offered in Farsi as well as English, including sessions where parents prefer Farsi and the children English. Samuel understands the specific strains on Iranian-Canadian families — honour, in-laws, obligation, and children growing up between two cultures. جلسات به فارسی برگزار میشود.
How do we start?
With a free 20-minute phone call directly with Samuel — no receptionist, no forms. Call or WhatsApp 604-721-0604, or text one line and he will call you back within a day. He listens, tells you honestly whether couples or family work fits, and offers a first session in person downtown or by video if it does.
More questions about family conflict counselling in Vancouver
Why do families keep having the same argument?
Because family arguments run on roles, not topics. Someone pursues, someone withdraws, someone mediates, someone gets blamed — and the roles fire automatically whatever the subject. Naming the pattern is the first step; once a family can see it, blame loses its grip and there is finally something to change other than the other person.
What is the difference between family therapy and couples therapy?
Couples therapy treats the relationship between two partners; family therapy treats the whole household system, including children, adult children, and sometimes grandparents. Many families need both at different points — a couple’s conflict often shows up first in a child’s behaviour. Samuel offers both under one roof and moves between them as needed. See the couples and family therapy page.
Can therapy help with parent–teen conflict?
Yes. Teen conflict usually reflects a family renegotiating autonomy and control faster than anyone planned. Sessions give the teenager a voice without letting them run the room, give parents a way to hold limits without daily war, and often surface an anxiety, ADHD or mood issue that was hiding behind the behaviour.
Can family therapy help with in-law and extended-family conflict?
Yes — it is one of the most frequent issues for Iranian-Canadian and other immigrant families in Vancouver. The work is usually with the couple first: agreeing what the marriage’s boundaries with each family are, and how to present them as a united front. Extended family members join only when it helps.
Can you help siblings who are fighting over care of an ageing parent?
Yes. Care decisions reopen every old sibling role — the responsible one, the absent one, the favourite. Structured family sessions separate the practical decisions from the historical grievances so that both can actually be dealt with.
What if the conflict involves emotional abuse or control?
Then joint sessions may not be safe or fair, and Samuel will say so after the assessment. In that case the work is individual — rebuilding clarity and confidence for the person on the receiving end. See healing from a narcissistic or emotionally abusive relationship.
Can couples therapy help after an affair?
Yes. Trust is rebuilt in a specific order — full disclosure, genuine remorse, then a rebuilt relationship — and Samuel uses the Gottman trust-recovery framework for structure and IFS for the parts of each partner that get flooded or vengeful. Samuel has written about the sequence in Rebuilding Trust After an Affair.
We are already separated. Is family therapy still useful?
Often more than before. Separated parents who can co-parent without pulling the children into the conflict give their children the single strongest protective factor research has found. Sessions can focus purely on co-parenting, with no agenda of reconciliation.
Can family therapy help a blended or step-family?
Yes. Blended families face predictable strains — loyalty binds for children, differences in discipline between biological parent and step-parent, ex-partners still shaping the household. Sessions set realistic expectations for how quickly a step-family becomes a family and give each adult a defined role.
What if my partner or family member refuses to come?
Start anyway. When one person changes their move in the pattern, the pattern changes; many reluctant partners and parents join later once they see that happening. Individual sessions focused on the family are common in the practice.
Do you take sides?
No. The pattern between people is the client, not any one person. Both — or all — accounts are treated as valid data. Where someone’s behaviour is unsafe, that is named clearly; ordinary blame is not adjudicated.
Is what we say in family sessions confidential?
Yes. Nothing leaves the practice without written consent, and how anything said in an individual session is handled within the family work is agreed at the start so nobody is surprised. For close-knit communities, discretion about who is attending is treated as part of confidentiality.
How is Samuel’s approach to family conflict different?
Samuel Ezzatilord, PhD, RCC, CCC, LMCC, combines the Gottman Method and IFS with 25 years of clinical work that includes refugee-camp trauma work with the International Red Crescent, veterans’ programs and hospital care in BC. When a family member’s ADHD, depression or anxiety is driving the conflict, his doctorate-level understanding of physiology and medication means it is treated as part of the picture — and neurofeedback training is available in the same practice. He answers his own phone.
Can family conflict therapy be done online?
Yes. Secure video works well for families spread across the Lower Mainland or BC — a parent in North Vancouver, an adult child in Surrey — and for couples who cannot both get downtown at the same hour. In-person sessions are at 1300–1500 West Georgia Street; many families mix the two.
Do you offer evening or weekend family sessions?
Yes. Evening and weekend appointments are available, in person or by video, because most families cannot all leave work and school at 2 p.m. Ask on the free call for the times that suit you.
Can family therapy help when one member has ADHD, anxiety or depression?
Yes, and it often should. When one person’s ADHD turns a partner into the household’s executive function, or one person’s anxiety sets the rules for everyone, treating only the individual leaves the pattern in place. Samuel treats the individual issue and the family pattern together, adding neurofeedback training where useful.
Is family therapy covered by extended health benefits?
Registered Clinical Counsellor sessions are covered by most extended health plans in BC, and family or couples sessions are billed under the plan of the member who is the client of record. Fees and expenses are covered by ICBC, CVAP, FNHA, IFHP, RCMP, VAC, and most other insurers, and direct billing is available. Bring the plan details to the free call and Samuel will confirm what applies.
How many family therapy sessions will we need?
Fewer than most families expect for a specific conflict, more for long-standing estrangement. Samuel reviews progress with you every few sessions and does not keep families coming without a reason; the goal is a household that can handle the next disagreement on its own.
What happens in the first family session?
Mostly listening. Samuel hears each person’s account, watches how the family talks about a recent conflict, and gives back a first, neutral map of the pattern — who does what, and what it protects. No one is blamed and no verdict is issued. By the end you have a shared name for the problem and a plan for who comes to the next few sessions.
Where can I read more about couples and family work in this practice?
See the couples and family therapy page, the Gottman Method and IFS pages, and recent posts on the blog. Then call or WhatsApp 604-721-0604 for the free 20-minute conversation.
What is parallel parenting, and is it a sign we have failed at co-parenting?
Parallel parenting is a deliberate low-contact way of raising children across two homes, and it is a legitimate choice rather than a failure. Communication is written, brief, and about logistics only; handovers are arranged so the child never watches a negotiation; and each household runs its own routines. Samuel often recommends it for the first year after a high-conflict separation, because the research consistently shows that children are harmed most by exposure to their parents’ fighting, not by living in two homes. Sessions build the channel, the rules, and the scripts, and can start with one parent alone.
Should a step-parent be the one to discipline the children in a new blended family?
Not at first. In a newly blended family Samuel asks the biological parent to hold discipline while the step-parent builds connection — warmth, interest, and time — because children accept limits from adults they already trust. Discipline authority is then extended to the step-parent gradually and explicitly by the parent, in front of the children, once a real relationship exists. Stepfamily research describes exactly this polarization — step-parent pulled toward strictness, parent toward permissiveness — as one of the most common strains on the new couple. Family sessions at 1300–1500 West Georgia, or by secure video across BC, work on the couple’s alignment first; a free 20-minute call is the place to start.
We share a home with my parents and there is no privacy left in our marriage — can counselling help without anyone moving out?
Yes — the household almost never has to change; the unwritten rules inside it do. Samuel helps couples in multigenerational homes carve out protected territory for the marriage: decisions, time, and space that belong to the two of you alone, plus a clear agreement that each partner manages expectations with their own parents, so neither spouse is left playing messenger. The work draws on Gottman Method and Internal Family Systems, and sessions run in English or Farsi. He writes about this in in-laws, multigenerational homes, and raising kids between two cultures. Start with a free 20-minute phone call at 604-721-0604.
Ready to talk? Your first 20 minutes are free. Call or text any day between 9am and 9pm — I respond within a couple of hours.