Tracy Hansen is open and straightforward and doesn’t mince words when trying to get to the bottom of her clients’ problems.

The licensed marriage and family therapist has been working from her practice at the Red Mill Center since June, helping couples and families sort through their issues with individualized and result-focused counseling.

Sitting in her sunny office, Hansen says, “I’m not the kind of therapist who will sit here and nod and say, ‘Hmm, hmm, that’s interesting.’” She aims right for the root of the problem, expecting her patients to tackle tough issues such as communication and intimacy problems.

She says she doesn’t want to waste any time. “If you’re here to see me, you’ve known you need to see me for three months, nine months. Your problems are serious, and we need to take care of them,” she said.

With her specialization in marriage and family therapy, Hansen says she sees a lot of people with mental health problems – clinically diagnosed depression, bipolar disorder and anxiety.

“I help couples struggling with infidelity, communication and intimacy issues,” said Hansen, who has been practicing 15 years.

Area couples are struggling because of the job market and the slow economy, she said. “Financial problems lead to stressors in the marriage, which lead to broken communication. That frustration can lead to a need to release and vent, and sometimes people make really bad decisions,” she said.

Much of Hansen’s therapy is about communication. “I teach people how to talk with each other, not to each other,” she said. Family members must keep the lines of communication open, whether between partners in a marriage or relationship or between parents and children.

That doesn’t necessarily mean she sits and speaks to couples at each session. In marriage and family counseling, both partners do not have to be present. The University of Maryland grad said she can help one half of a partnership, willing to seek help, identify and try to correct problems.

Hansen and her husband moved to Delaware in July 2007. She left the Fairfax, Va., family counseling center where she’d worked eight years to move here, where she and her husband want to raise their twin daughters, away from the cutthroat competitiveness of the Washington, D.C., area, she said.

“I think the small-town living here is very appealing,” she said. She said, compared to the Washington metro area, there are few licensed marriage and family therapists. Hansen has reached out to local general physicians, social workers and other mental health workers to grow her practice.

Hansen said some problems stem from the way people perceive their parents’ or friends’ marriages. They may see others as happier than themselves and feel they have a problem. For those people, Hansen said therapy will help them identify what they want and need from their relationships.

Whether a person wants a dependent partner or someone who allows independence is an individual choice. “It’s your decision,” she said.

The same goes for the way in which people communicate. Patients often worry about fighting – but Hansen says sometimes fighting works. “If fighting works for you, then fight. If it doesn’t, then you need to stop,” she said.

She also helps parents and children communicate with each other as they navigate difficult life stages.

Those can be the classic struggles of teens and parents, and Hansen is also available to help her patients help their children through divorce.

There is an age-appropriate way to discuss divorce with children, said Hansen, and she’ll often have children old enough to comprehend the events attend therapy with their parents so they can understand what is happening and why.

Family counseling is also a good way for divorcing parents to decide how to coparent their children, said Hansen.

Tracy Hansen’s office is located in the Red Mill Center on Route 1.

Reach Tracy Hansen at 302-644-7625