Family Therapy in Laguna Beach

Family therapy at Third Street Counseling is led by Elaine Pike, AMFT, and Michele Hall-Preston, LMFT. Families fall into patterns over years without anyone deciding to. A parent and a teen who can only seem to find the friction, siblings whose roles got assigned early and never revisited, or a whole system adjusting to a loss, a move, or a new chapter that no one quite knows how to talk about.

Family therapy brings everyone into one room with a clinician who helps each person be heard, including the quiet ones. We begin with a free consult to understand what your family is carrying and whether we are the right fit. Sessions are held in our Laguna Beach office or by telehealth across California.

Communication breakdowns are one of the most common reasons families come to therapy. The same conversation that happens over and over, the person who dominates and the one who goes quiet, the pattern where everyone ends up frustrated and nothing changes. Therapy helps families see the pattern as a pattern, not as a personal failing, and build new ways of talking that actually work.

Transitions can unsettle a family system. A divorce, a move, a new baby, a loss, a child leaving for college: each can shift roles and dynamics in ways that are hard to navigate alone. If transitions are the focus, our life transitions therapy page has more on how we work with that terrain.

For families with children, Elaine Pike, AMFT, brings 18 years of special-education experience to understanding what is underneath the behavior. If the primary concern is about a specific child, child therapy or teen therapy may also be relevant, and the two can work in parallel.

Some families come to therapy because one member is struggling and the whole system is affected. In those cases, individual therapy for that person and family therapy for the system can complement each other. The free consult is the place to talk through what fits your family.