Family Counseling Services in Pacific Palisades, CA.

Family conflict is a common occurrence for everyone, but it doesn’t have to be a fact of life. I can help facilitate communication between your family members so that every person feels heard, fulfilled, and loved. Both parenting and being a child are difficult, but better family interactions can make life wonderful for everyone as a united family.

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.

The only type of family therapy I provide is Maudsley Family-Based Treatment or FBT. This is a specific evidence-based treatment for adolescent eating disorders. I am one of only a few therapists in LA County certified in FBT. The treatment empowers parents to be part of the treatment team and requires their active participation. Treatment initially focuses on weight restoration and/or elimination of bingeing and purging behaviors, with the parents given the task of providing adequate nutrition for their adolescent during family meals.

I routinely work with families in my practice. There are any number of reasons that families seek counseling. Quite frequently, the reasons revolve around children and parenting. Sometimes there are issues between child or adult siblings. Unresolved conflicts from childhood. Arguments ensue over the family business. Caring for a special needs child, or an aging parent. At other times, family members have experienced a loss in the family or there are struggles with blending families in second marriages. These struggles also bring with them opportunities to create openings that may not have existed before. Counseling can be very useful in healing old wounds and settling disputes.

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.

Emotional problems play out in families. They often start there. If this is the case: no matter how much individual therapy a person gets, things don't really seem to get better. Sometimes the whole family needs to be involved in the therapeutic process. Call me for a consultation to find the best course of action for you and your family. We can get to the root of the issues to help you start a whole new relationship with your family.

I work with families on a variety of issues including communication, divorce, blending families, grief & loss, power struggles, and phase of life transitions such as becoming a parent, teen topics, and aging/elder issues. I offer a supportive environment where we will work together so family members can gain the necessary skills to overcome challenges and strengthen relationships.

Family therapy looks at the entire family system—parents, children, extended family members—to identify strengths and problematic behaviours. I collaborate with families on strategies for utilizing their own capabilities for resolving problems, and on developing effective communication and problem-solving skills for preventing conflicts. I specialize in working with families of teenagers, which is an age that can be challenging for both the teenagers and their parents.

When one person in the family is plagued by a problem, it disrupts the whole system. Feeling disruptions in the family is difficult and may be the reason family therapy is the right choice for you. I believe that by providing family therapy, the family can learn to live more cohesively and talk to one another, not at each other. A good family therapist is one to help put the pieces back together after things have fallen apart. I listen to family members individually and as a whole to hear what the problem is from their perspective and treat it accordingly. Getting family therapy may be the best decision of your lives. Call for a free, confidential consultation today.

I offer family therapy for families who have young children and/or adolescents. This is a speciality! I have three therapists who have different specialtes with family therapy! One is a teen and teen parenting specialists, another specializes in families with young children and another specializes in difficult families, families and trauma and another still with single parent families or blended families (families coming together with other families). I specifically work with families and parents of teens and alterative families (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender families - either parents are GLBT or families who have a GLBT child). Call me and one of us will be the perfect match!

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 many ways, I practice Family Therapy every day-even though I usually see only couples and individuals! The reason for this is because we all come from a family system, and our role and place in that system are revealed in every we relationship we have. The early attachment experiences we had as young ones set the stage for our intimate relationships later in life. It can be an illuminating experience to examine and understand the family system dynamics that you-and/or your spouse came from, thereby better understanding the context from which we came.

Families are complicated machines. There are many parts, all of which must work in unison and balance with one another. When this balance is disrupted because one or more family members are having an issue or a hard time, the entire machine (family) stops functioning optimally. Like any machine would, your family may need a "tune up" at that time. You must relearn how to function at your best.