Family Counseling Services in Ladera Heights, CA.

What future do you want for your family? Stressors can affect families in many ways. Family therapy provides the opportunity to change your family’s relationship to its problems and the effects those problems have on each person in your family. Families come to therapy for a variety of reasons: single parenthood; underperformance at school; birth of a new sibling; unemployment; relocation; substance abuse; mental illness; divorce; blending families; grief and loss. If your family is experiencing difficulty, family therapy is a way to increase communication and understanding, while discovering sources of strength and support within your family.

Family therapy is about communication and safety in the family system. Balanced family leadership requires the ability to be firm, and friendly, and to set developmentally appropriate limits while remaining fair, flexible, and encouraging. In balanced families, individuality and connection to the family are both significant. Family processes can be cooperative, consistent, and caring. My humanistic approach is in presenting with “realness” and joining the family in their discussions to understand the issues at hand. My goal is towards unmasking issues and creating new meanings for the family. Often the spontaneous reactions to the present situation in the therapy room create the client’s awareness of their inner potentials and opens the channels of...(view profile to read more)

Family conflict can cause a great amount of distress in your life, making it hard to function. I can provide an opportunity for families to sort through their issues in a safe place, with someone who has the training/experience to teach healthy communication skills in order to make progress on resolving the issues the family is facing. My goal is to restore harmony to the family and allow them to thrive and be a source of support and comfort for each other, rather than a source of pain and conflict. It takes courage to change, but if the circumstances have become overwhelming, change is essential for things to improve, and the first step is to be brave enough to reach out for help.

If you and your family aren't getting along or are having some form of difficulty, family therapy can be incredibly useful. I would help to give each family member a voice--a way to be heard, understood, and accepted. In fact, I would fight for this on behalf of each family member who feels disregarded, disrespected, or dismissed. I would help each person to feel respected and to be given a sense of dignity as we work together to improve the critically important aspect of communication--something I find wanting in many families.

In working with families, we will collaborate on addressing the couple's need to be in charge. Family rules and boundaries are sometimes unclear to children. We will work together to communicate your expectations. When acting out, underachievement, conduct problems, defiant or oppositional behaviors present in the children, the the parents need to be on the same page. Your family will learn, insession, preferred communicatin styles; empathic listening, group problem solving skills, tolerance, respect and acceptance of each other. Family members will learn to interact without anger, resentment, sarcasm or disrespect. Parents need to be authoritative without being authoritarian.

No two families were created alike. Therefore, therapy has to be customized to suit the particular dynamics of each family. Assembly-line approaches won't work. Healthy communication and individual growth within each family member as well as the entire family system are some important goals in family therapy. One family systems approach I Integrate in my counseling is that of Carl Whitaker's. This involves "authentically 'being' with the family and their anxieties rather than aloofly applying predetermined techniques." Individuation is a priority-- each member is allowed his/her own perceptions and treatment as an individual.

A family is not just a collection of people. Everyone in the family impacts the family dynamic, how the people relate to each other. And, each person changes that dynamic, in a unique way, even when they may not intend to. If you’re having difficulties in your family, we can address how the family’s rules of relating and the patterns of relationships can help to make things better. We’ll also see how unproductive patterns can be eliminated.

Many times families need help to deal with struggles between them, or to get through difficult circumstances. Each relationship within a family is different from all others, and may need specific opportunities to express thoughts and feelings. Supportive and encouraging therapy may be just what is needed to remove blocks between family members so that the love can flow again.

A healthy family is much like owning and maintaining a car. That is, if something is wrong with the car, the car won't run properly. Same goes for families. If one person is having difficulties then it affects the entire family. Family therapy helps everyone in the family work better together by addressing all the problems that are getting in the way.

In doing family therapy I try to work with all members of the family so that I can understand the dynamics, the rules and roles, the relationships that are not permitting the family to function in a healthy way. Even when it seems to be just one person who has a problem, it may be the whole family that is interacting in ways that can be improved. I work to have the family understand what is really going on and changes they may need to make to function in healthier ways. I focus on the need for respectful communication and cooperation between all family members, including children. My Parenting Classes focus on specific skills to achieve calmer homes with respectful and respected children.

Family Therapy or Family Counseling is a therapeutic tool to help a family to resolve the many problems that are causing the family to hurt. Sometimes this is just an adjustment to a big life change, such as, a career change, a new baby, a move, a death in the family, launching young adults, or the sad event of the loss of a loved one. This can also involve unhealthy patterns of behavior, addictions, or abuse. With each of these family challenges I utilize a Christian model of counseling to help your family be restored to the healthy loving one you envisioned.

I have found in my many years of experience that many emotional issues and dysfunctional patterns occur in the context of the family system. In family therapy, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This means that the family system can influence the emotional well being of its members. In our family therapy sessions, we understand the presenting issues through the lens of the family. For example, what are the relationships and connections that provide the foundation for a particular behavior? What is the structure of the family and how does it support the members' behavior? Many behavior patterns and issues respond well by working with the family

Dr. Clark has extensive training and experience helping family, including eight years working as a Director of Child and Family Services for a large medical facility. Dealing with the stresses of raising children can become overwhelming, and often problem seem to repeat themselves with no hope in sight. It can be very helpful to get another point of view from an objective psychologist.