William F Northey

William F. Northey, Jr., Ph.D., (Dr. Bill) is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Bellefonte, Delaware with over 30 years of clinical experience working with children and families.

As the Clinical Director of the Bellefonte Center for Children and Families, he is dedicated to helping families that get "stuck" whether that is because of issues navigating developmental stages, like adolescence or divorce, or dealing with the impact that substance abuse and other compulsive behaviors have on families. Dr. Bill has traveled the globe training clinicians in working with families facing substance use disorders and resolving high-conflict child custody issues.

Dr. Bill is a "true-blue" marriage and family therapist receiving both a masters and doctoral degrees in marriage and family therapy. He is a leading expert on Strategic Family Therapy, which focuses not on "why" families have problems, but "how" can the problem be resolved as quickly as possible.

Dr. Bill likes to joke that he is always trying to "work himself out of a job," because he believes no one needs therapy forever. It is just that sometimes couples and families get stuck and they often cannot figure out how to get unstuck. So he focuses on what can be done in the "here-and-now" to resolve the problem as quickly as possible, sometimes in just a few sessions, and is effective with a wide range of problems people experience.

Dr. Bill recently worked with a family who reported their 5-year-old child was sucking her thumb at home and school and despite numerous attempts to break her of this habit they could not. Dr. Bill recommended an approach the parents could use and they came back to the next session and said, “That was a miracle. She stopped sucking her thumb"