Brian Thompson

Brian Thompson

Brian Thompson, LMFT, CATC-IV, C.Ht. CT
LMFT #104710

About Brian Thompson

Life Doesn’t Have To Hurt


As individuals, we spend so much of our lives looking for ways to avoid the feelings associated with everyday life. For some, a variety of addictive behaviors appear to be a way out from feelings of despair. Some individuals find themselves lost in depression and a lack of desire to move forward. Others have learned to avoid intimate relationships and commitments as a way to alleviate the heartache of disappointment, inadequacy, and infidelity. I have personally learned from many of these processes, that with a willingness to make even the slightest change, life doesn’t have to hurt.

I believe that every experience in life has meaning and can often shape the way in which we view ourselves. Often, it is the understanding of personal experiences and relationships that become problematic and can lead to a decrease in the enjoyment of daily living. By creating a space that is free from judgment and allows for the safe expression of thoughts and feelings, I believe that I have a unique approach to helping individuals, couples, and families find happiness and enjoy the gifts of daily life.

I am very well versed in working with individuals struggling through a wide variety of addictions. I have also spent a great deal of time helping individuals, especially male clients, navigate through the pain of molestation, rape, and other sexual trauma. Clients have also found success in dealing with concerns surrounding depression, anxiety, and panic through my collaborative approach to therapy. While I often gravitate towards the understanding of how childhood experiences play out in understanding life, I also focus on helping others to change thoughts, feelings, and behaviors through a variety of therapeutic modalities. Each client is different and I do not use a predetermined treatment plan. I believe that therapy is an opportunity to gain understanding, hope, and self worth. I feel that everyone deserves to find inner peace and to have good things in life. Together, I believe that change is possible for any individual, couple, or family willing to invest in building a better understanding of personal experiences and desires while breaking through the stressors of daily living.

Brain Thompson

Brain Thompson

28202 Cabot Road Suite #373
Laguna Niguel, CA 92677

Services

 

Addiction and The Family

Families where addiction is present are often times painful to live in, which is why those who live with addiction may become traumatized by the experience. Broad swings, from one end of the emotional, psychological and behavioral spectrum to the other, all too often characterize the addicted family system. Living with addiction can put family members under unusual stress. Recovery from the addiction for families is an important part of the healing process.

Anxiety Treatment

Anxiety is a normal response to human experience and survival. Anxiety is one of the most common reasons people seek therapy. Anxiety is defined as nervousness and an inability to relax. Some level of anxiety is normal in human beings; however, excessive anxiety can interfere with relationships, sleeping patterns, and all areas of life. Anxiety can take several forms, including phobias, obsessive-compulsions, and panic attacks, and it is often associated with depression.

Couples Counseling

Couples therapy, helps couples — married or not — understand and resolve conflicts and improve their relationship. Couples therapy gives couples the tools to communicate better, negotiate differences, problem solve and even argue in a healthier way. Illness, infidelity, sex, anger, communication problems — all can contribute to distress in marriages or other relationships. Marriage counseling or couples counseling can help resolve conflicts and heal wounds.

Family Support & Counseling

Family therapy brings parents, siblings and extended family members such as aunts, uncles and grandparents into the treatment process. Family plays an important role in our emotional, physical and spiritual development since each individual in the family system impacts and is impacted by the others. Family therapy may be helpful to: Resolve a specific issue, prepare the family for a major life change such as a divorce or remarriage, or address the role that family plays in an individual’s life.

Grief and Loss Support

Grief is a reaction to loss that can encompass a range of feelings, thoughts, and behaviors, and is experienced differently by each person according to his or her culture, background, gender, beliefs, personality, and relationship to the deceased. Feelings common to grief are sadness and yearning. Guilt, regret, anger, and a sense of meaninglessness can also be present. Emotions can be surprising in their strength or mildness, contrary to the expectations of the griever.

LGTB / Sexual Orientation Support

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) individuals seek counseling for help with the many of the same clinical and life issues as heterosexuals - depression, anxiety, grief, couple’s therapy, work stress, etc. Many issues may appear to have little to do with sexual or gender orientation while others may be intimately connected to the LGBT identity. Regardless if you seek therapy for issues related to your LGBT status or not, it is imperative you feel supported.

Military and Families of Military Support

When men and women sign up for the military, their husbands, wives and children sign up too. We understand that you and your family has signed up for much more than serving our country. Military service can impact families in ways that are subtle, in ways that are touching, in ways that are stressful, and in ways that are heart wrenching. We can help the couple who is coping with separation from their love, or the service member reentering civilian life.

Support Groups

The biggest advantage of support group therapy is in helping a patient realize that he or she is not alone -- that there are other people who have the same problems. Being in a support group can also help you develop new skills to relate to others. Support groups can benefit people with such conditions as depression, family problems, addictions, grief & loss, chronic illness, and more. Members of a group who have the same problem(s) can support each other.

Marriage and Family Therapist

Couples therapy, helps couples — married or not — understand and resolve conflicts and improve their relationship. Couples therapy gives couples the tools to communicate better, negotiate differences, problem solve and even argue in a healthier way. Illness, infidelity, sex, anger, communication problems — all can contribute to distress in marriages or other relationships. Marriage counseling or couples counseling can help resolve conflicts and heal wounds.

Addiction Treatment

Addiction is the compulsive, physiological need for and use of a habit-forming substances or external behaviors that the user knows to be physically, psychologically, or socially harmful.Substances that often lead to addiction include:Street drugs or prescription pharmaceuticals, nicotine, and alcohol. Addiction also comes in other forms and can be applied to certain behaviors that are carried out in excess:Shopping, dieting or overeating,working, drinking,exercising, and smoking.

Hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy utilizes a heightened awareness to help clients explore your fears, phobias, habits and anxiety based emotions more deeply. You will be guided to visualize yourself in a state of peacefulness and relaxation, even when confronting the object of your fears. During hypnotherapy, you, the client, remain in control. It is not possible for anyone to force you to do anything against your will, even under hypnosis. You will be tuned in to the work at hand, but you will always be in charge of your own actions, behaviors and statements. Hypnotherapy has been used to stop addictive habits like smoking and substance abuse as well as problems dealing with weight loss, pain management, marriage and family problems, along with fears, phobias, and anxiety. Hypnotherapy helps clients overcome physical and psychological problems. Hypnotherapy is a form of alternative medicine which combines hypnosis and therapeutic intervention.

Physical, verbal and Sexual Abuse & Trauma

Abuse comes in all shapes. Some may be more obvious to the world, some known only to the victim and perpetrator. If someone grows up in a home where there was abuse, it is difficult not to think of it as normal. Most survivors often discount the abuse. Some individuals don’t even call it abuse because then that would make an angry or powerful person responsible and danger can be increased. It is also difficult to accept someone you love or someone who is even a friend of the family has hurt you. Many survivors assume responsibility for the abuse –even think it was because something was wrong with them. Unfortunately, long after the abuse has stopped the aftereffects continue to haunt them. Core feelings that were born in the environment of abuse strangle their emotional and developmental growth.

Interventions

An intervention is an orchestrated attempt by one or many people – usually family and friends – to get someone to seek professional help with an addiction or some kind of traumatic event or crisis, or other serious problem. Interventions have been used to address serious personal problems, including, but not limited to, alcoholism, compulsive gambling, drug abuse, compulsive eating and other eating disorders, self harm and being the victim of abuse.

Canine Therapist

Canine therapy is the discipline of using dogs as a means to provide metaphoric experiences in order to promote emotional growth. The dogs provide an excellent way for children, individuals, couples and families to react and interact when they are otherwise therapy resistant. Canine therapists will usually teach many lessons on ways in which dogs learn, react, and follow instructions and how these interactions often mirror experiences that occur in daily life.