Phil Brown, Marriage Counselor in Bainbridge Island, 98110

Dr. Phil Brown, LMFT

Profession(s):
Marriage & Family Therapy, Psychotherapy, Counseling
License Status:
I'm a licensed professional.
Primary License:
LMFT

My Approach to Helping

For most people, family relationships, (both past and present) are the focal point of their lives. Such relationships are often the source of our greatest joys, ears, pain, hopes, and aspirations. We believe that the relationships within the couple and family system have tremendous power to create meaningful and lasting change. Our role is to collaborate with the couple and/or family system in ways that help reduce distress and co-create meaningful changes in our clients' lives. Successful therapy helps to effectively shift the communication, roles, and relationships with those who matter most.

More Info About My Practice

-Over 25 years experience in practicing, teaching, and researching couple
and family therapy.
-Author of numerous professional articles and two books, The Death of
Intimacy and Cross-cultural Practice with Couples and Families.
-Most major insurances accepted (or sliding fee scale based upon ability
to pay).

My Guiding Ethical Principles

Beacon Couple & Family Therapy Dr. Phil Brown, LMFT Rules of the Road? Clients come to our offices with all kinds of notions about what it takes to make couples therapy successful. Regardless of the presenting problem, unless the necessary context and expectations are agreed upon by both client and therapist, therapy will likely fail. Consequently, the therapist’s challenge is to discuss principles and expectations about what constitutes “successful therapy.” However, before discussing what makes therapy successful, perhaps it might be useful to examine what we believe might make therapy unsuccessful versus successful. How to make couples therapy unsuccessful: 1. Blame anyone else but yourself and avoid taking responsibility for your own piece of the problem. 2. Ignore the communication patterns in your relationship that make you both feel like you’re having the same argument again and again. 3. Assume that there is one correct view of the situation-- your view. After all, you’re a logical person and you’ve thought this thing through. 4. Maintain the belief that even though issues may have taken years to create, they can be resolved in a few short weeks of therapy. 5. Don’t bother to establish clear and realistic therapeutic goals. 6. Tell your therapist how to do therapy. 7. Maintain the erroneous belief that relationships are a 50/50 proposition, when, in fact, they are a 90/90 proposition. 8. Never complete the homework assignments tha