Family Counseling Services in Paramount, CA.

If you are at your wits end trying to balance the confusing and demanding needs of one or all family members you may benefit from my ability to help you sort it all out. With me you will find someone capable to help listen compassionately to all and give you and your family the relief of having an experienced coach. I can help improve communication and prescribe learning experiences that give you confidence in better problem solving.

Therapy focuses on the patterns of interaction between family members, and emphasizes improved communication and connection as an important factor to create change. Involving various family members in treatment helps to benefit so that everyone has a similar understanding of the issues within the relationships, and expectations of others. The most important factor within those connections is personal accountability so that each member is taking responsibility for any actions they cause to the system, versus being focused on how other members may have hurt them.

Every family has some sort of dysfunction since individuals are not perfect. I have worked for over ten years with youth and their families. I believe family therapy is essential when working with youth since children and adolescents have limited insight and need structure, guidance, and discipline from parents/caregivers. I begin the initial session meeting with the parents/caregivers to identify and discuss problems and confidentiality. I then meet with the youth/children with the parents to work on agreed treatment goals. The ultimate goal of family therapy is to increase open and respectful communication and improve parent/child relationships.

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!

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.

Raising a family can be challenging, especially when parenting children struggling with anxiety or depression. Anxiety and depression are often reinforced and enabled unintentionally via the family system and by the adults most involved in the child's life. I use a family systems based approach to treating children with anxiety and/or depression, which helps parents develop the tools necessary to decrease anxiety or depression related behavioral issues, tantrums, and conflict in the home. In addition to building skills that help support their children without enabling symptoms of anxiety or depression.

I work closely with families throughout my treatment to focus on understanding the family as a system and each member as having a unique role. Working together we can often uncover unmet needs and ways in which we can support one another towards our mutual goals. Further, by working with the family as a whole, we are able to acknowledge each of our role in the identified barrier and take ownership in our plan towards a solution.

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)

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.

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.

As a Family Therapist, I specialize in facilitating conversations where all voices can be heard and new understanding can be reached. Psychotherapy offers many opportunities for dialogue. My approach opens space for different experiences, perspectives and possibilities for the future. It is a chance to heal past hurts, deepen relationships and move forward with increased sharing and connection.

Raising our children is one of the most important things that we will ever do in life. How they turn out, how life goes for them, whether they experience joy and happiness because of their inner strength and resources, or struggle with life because of inadequate coping skills is largely in our hands. Many adults have had hundreds, if not thousands of hours of training for their profession, yet when we become parents there is virtually no training available for what most people agree is one of the most important jobs on the planet: being a parent.

Parent-child conflicts, sibling rivalry that has gotten out of hand, issues arising from divorce or parental conflict all these issues need to be discussed and have a supported and open conversation with your family members. I will work together with the family in order to identify areas of dysfunction and to help the family move through the difficult times that a family faces.