Family therapy in Wellesley, structured for real communication and lasting change.
If you're searching for family therapy in Wellesley, something specific has likely been wearing on you. Maybe it's parent-teen tension that keeps escalating. Maybe it's a transition: a new diagnosis, a divorce, a child leaving home, a family member in crisis. Maybe it's a pattern of communication that worked once and doesn't anymore. Onto Therapy was built to help families move through those moments with structure, clarity, and measurable progress, not open-ended weekly sessions that never quite land.
Common reasons families come to us:
• Parent-teen conflict, communication breakdowns, and chronic friction
• Families navigating a child's mental health diagnosis or treatment
• Blended families, separation, and divorce — helping kids and parents adjust
• Life transitions — launching a young adult, a child returning home, a parent aging
• Grief and loss affecting a whole family system
• Substance use or mental health concerns in one family member affecting everyone
• Patterns of communication that no one quite knows how to change
Structured, not open-ended
Every family engagement starts with a comprehensive assessment of what's actually going on, then a clear plan with goals and a defined timeline. We focus on the patterns and skills that change family dynamics, not just on letting everyone vent.
Evidence-based foundation
Our family work draws on the same evidence-based protocols we use in individual therapy: skills for emotion regulation, communication, distress tolerance, and conflict resolution. These are tools families can actually take home and use.
Who participates depends on the work
Sometimes the right work happens with the whole family in the room. Sometimes it's one parent, or two parents together, or a parent-teen dyad. We'll figure out the right structure during intake.
Coordinated with individual care when needed
When a family member needs individual treatment alongside family work, we can integrate that into a single, coordinated plan — not bounce between unconnected providers.
Hospital-trained leadership
Onto was founded by Kerry Rivard, LMHC, former Program Director of the 3-East DBT Residence at McLean Hospital, and Douglas Katz, PhD. Dr. Katz is on the clinical and research faculty at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and is an Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
Strong with adolescents and young adults
Many of the families we work with are navigating the years from middle school through early adulthood. Kerry's background gives Onto unusual depth with this stage of family life.
Care Management when life is complicated
When the family is also managing aging parents, healthcare coordination, or complex medical situations, we can fold Care Management into the plan.
We work with families in person in Wellesley and via telehealth throughout Massachusetts. Our family therapy clients come from Wellesley, Needham, Newton, Weston, Natick, Dover, Wayland, and across MetroWest. Many include students at Wellesley HS, Dana Hall, Wellesley College, Babson, and Olin.
Onto is out-of-network private pay. We provide superbills monthly for clients submitting for out-of-network reimbursement, and accept FSA and HSA.
The best way to know if Onto is the right fit is a free 20-minute consultation. We'll discuss your goals, answer your questions, walk through our approach and pricing, and help you decide whether to schedule a full intake.
Other Ways We Help
Many families come to us specifically because a teen or young adult is struggling — when that's the case, we often pair family work with individual teen therapy so both layers move forward together.
For families navigating aging parents, multiple providers, or healthcare-system complexity alongside the therapy work, we also offer private care management.
Families dealing with high-conflict communication or intense emotion dysregulation sometimes benefit from DBT skills training for both parents and teens — shared language goes a long way.