Dr. Brenner Family Therapy - Sherman Oaks Family Therapy - Los Angeles Area Family Therapy

For more than twenty-five years as a family therapist, I have come to the conclusion that the root difficulty most people have in life can be summed up in two words: unhappy relationships. Unhealthy relationships make us feel unsafe, more sad and more fearful of the future. Conversation without understanding is like eating food without chewing.Our rules of personal behavior are almost always governed by our past. If too many of our early relationships were abnormal, we adopt abnormal responses. We must break that linkage and substitute new emotional reactions. But first, we must know what is normal and not normal, in the context of family relationships. Family therapy brings entire families together to expose the real issues.

The goals of family therapy include setting new boundaries, strengthening parent leadership, building real trust and freeing family members from their entrenched defensive positions within the family system. Dysfunctional families prevent individuals from becoming healthier emotionally, because the family system relies on its troubled member or members to play a particular role in order to function in its accustomed way. With families who are experiencing divorce, Dr. Brenner helps each spouse avoid the tendency to create parent alienation. Favoritism is also exposed as the unspoken culprit to both sibling rivalry and defiance. Family Therapy allows maximum expression for all members without fear of rebuke to begin the process to open up and rebuild trust.