Family Counseling Services in Orange, CA.

Your family is the most important thing. I am a family man myself and know how devastating it can be when things are not as they should be. I bring a kind ear to the family and help EACH PERSON FEEL UNDERSTOOD. Finding the right person to help you is a lot to do with chemistry. Please call me at (949) 288-3123 if you have any questions at all. I want your therapy journey to be as successful as possible.

Our struggles are not formed, nor do they persist, in a vacuum. Particularly when working with young children, it is often important to work with the family as a unit to create systemic changes which will support lasting change. This make take the shape of helping to facilitate difficult parent - teen communication, change interaction patterns between parents and children to support changes in all family members, or involving the family in supporting one member's recovery from a traumatic experience. Whatever your goal is for your family, please call to discuss how family therapy with me may benefit you.

Family therapy is the treatment of more than one member of a family at the same session, based on the idea that problems going on within the family can best be understood and corrected by observing the interaction of family members and identifying methods for improving their interrelationships. The behaviors of one member of the family affects the emotions, perceptions and behaviors of another member of the family. They are intertwined as something larger than themselves. Together, I will teach you a variety of tools that will help your family's interaction. For example, through reframing, we can often turn a negative experience into a positive one. Call me for a phone consultation to determine when we can meet to discuss your family issues.

Feeling disconnected from your partner or children? Struggling with parenting or putting yourself on your "to do" list? There are so many demands on our everyday life, we often lose sight of our most important relationships, our family. Family comes in all types of configurations, whether you are a single parent, a couple with no children, a couple of the same sex, married or not married, your family priorities are my priority as your therapist. I practice positive psychology techniques that allow us a deep understanding of your family values, and how to make changes in your family's behavioral patterns to reflect those values.

My style to family therapy is to look at the family system as a whole. One person's suffering can be sympomatic of the family and I can help guide the family to a healthier style of communicating, interacting and bring you closer together. Having a large family of my own gives me the added edge in understanding the challenges that are faced on a daily basis!

Most family therapists inadvertently create more chaos through their well-intentioned efforts to assist a family move through a change process. Why? Brains are inherently deregulated (all of us, may I add) and most talking and dialoguing misses brain-centric problems that need more intensive help. Many times the emotional trauma created by years of solving problems ineffectively can wreak havoc on the brain's parasympathetic nervous system, not ever giving the family a break from flight or fight thinking. Contact us for an innovative neuroscience solution to family dysfunction. Kevin@kevinflemingphd.com or 877-606-6161.

Being part of any size group is challenging because we are called upon to deal with temperaments, personalities, and perspectives that differ from our own. And in families especially, we often wonder “WHY can’t they all be more like ME?!” as we struggle to also deal with different age groups and outside influences, such as peer pressures and various scheduling demands. Good, respectful communication and establishing (and maintaining) proper boundaries are key. We look to the family to provide us with a stable base… a safe haven from the world, and when it fails to do that, we are often heartbroken. Whether you have a child going through a rough transition, a teen that is trying to individuate, the challenge of blending two families, a desire to reunite...(view profile to read more)

If you meet with us, we will begin therapy working with the adults to better understand their perception of the problems. Then we will work to help the adults gain insight into their part of the family dysfunction. Once those patterns change usually the children or teens respond favorably to the changes and often the acting out behaviors can be resolved fairly quickly.

All of our counselors practice Family Psychology. We understand and treat symptoms from a systems perspective. This means that many factors contribute to an problem behavior. Symptoms don't happen in a vacuum. Frequently, we invite the spouse or family members to participate in sessions. Using therapy as a safe place, we work collaboratively together to create effective solutions. Using proven methods such as behavioral contracting and family experiments, family members learn to communicate and offer mutual support through experiences. Many families are toxic. We can help you to establish strong boundaries and new behaviors that will disrupt the dominant patterns of conflict and reactions.

Family Therapy is often the most beneficial when there is a family conflict or crises. Examples of family conflict are a recent divorce or separation, sibling rivalry, arguments over a living trust or will and discussing end-of-life issues. One of the most difficult situations for families to adjust to is blending families. If you have been married before and going into a second marriage with your own children, it brings a whole new set of problems . Examples of a family crises is death of a loved one, a family member of loved one getting a serious illness, or a family member going through a trauma like physical or sexual abuse, being severely bullied, victim of a crime or the like.

Families are the fundamental unit of our society. Healthy families make our world better. I try to balance the needs of the individual with the need for a stable and happy family. It is critical that all voices be heard, including children who do not have the authority of a parent, but whose voice, feelings and behaviors are always some kind of barometer about what is going on in the family. Finding ways to support multiple needs while preserving the family's stability is what I specialize in. While compromise can be important, I feel it is important to help families find ways where all basic needs can be met. You will learn to be open and communicate more in your family work with me.

Problematic behaviors in a child or teen are usually rooted in some disturbance of the emotional connections within the family. I can help your family reconnect with each other using an approach called Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT). EFFT rebuilds connections by helping you to understand and change the repetitive and self-reinforcing negative interactions that create distance and conflict within your family. People are empowered when they feel a secure sense of being loved. They naturally become stronger, more resilient, and more autonomous – not weak or needy. Once your child or teen feels securely connected, he or she will have a foundation on which to build positive behaviors.

Family therapy sessions aim to strengthen all members of the family so they can work out problems together. Often, if one family member is identified as having an illness, the cause can be traced back to a larger family problem. If the person with the illness is treated while the rest of the family does not change, then the symptoms will persist. Family therapy breaks these cycles by teaching everyone to better interact with one another.