LMFT, 14 years of experience
Hello! I'm Chris Brown, Marriage and Family Therapist. My initial training and experience as a counselor were in college, where I was both a Residence Assistant and Hall Coordinator. While I enjoyed and felt gratified from that work, I graduated to embark on a 25 year career in software development. Throughout that time, I volunteered as both a suicide and crisis counselor, and a domestic violence educator and counselor. I realized that my most fulfilling work was when I was coaching and managing my teams and that, over time, I had increased the time I spent as a counselor and teacher. I finally decided to change my career to the one I had been incrementally working toward, one where the focus and the goal are to connect with, support and help other people. As a therapist, I worked in Fremont, Berkeley and Contra Costa mental health systems as well as for a non-profit organization devoted to treating and helping victims of domestic violence. I've also been a therapist for, and managed therapists in, a large health care provider. I have experience with patients with severe mental illness, with survivors of abuse, and with people who realize that they simply can't continue to live like they've been living. My practice emphasizes patients learning and using cognitive behavioral, brief therapy, mindfulness, acceptance and somatic skills. While I might initially help my patients get through crisis and stabilization, I like to expand treatment to include helping my patients build increased resiliency through using solid coping skills. Along the way, I help my patients envision their preferred self and way of living. which they start to realize using their new skills.
Our first few seconds determine how the first session goes. If a patient is in trauma, we focus on using grounding interventions to help the patient focus on administrative and safety discussions that need to be completed in the first session. It’s important that a patient intake be completed by the end of the first session. Clients are sent this form prior to the session and filling it out and submitting it prior to the session reduces the time spent on this important task to time spent reviewing the submitted form. I ask about client safety, including thoughts of suicide and practice of self harm, at the beginning of each session. Some people are in trauma, are having very strong emotions and need, more than anything else, to be supported and to feel accepted and heard. In those instances, more of a first session might be devoted to grounding and validating than to goal setting. Other people prefer that the first session be a cordial and collaborative conversation about why they're in therapy, what they're hoping to get from therapy. During this time we'll probably start talking in more detail about their personal history and discuss their hopes and expectations. If people come in curious and unsure, I'm happy to start the session by talking about what therapy is and can do and gently guide them into talking about what got them to consider therapy, weaving their hopes in with what I present about therapy. Eventually, all patients need to discuss the basics of being in therapy - being on time, cancellation policy, safety and self-harm. We need to discuss constraints placed on therapy by her insurance. We can agree on frequency and duration at that point, or we can defer that discussion until we know more about a client's goals, and what kind of process we want to follow. I think it's important that patients end their first session with a clear idea about what to expect next session, that they are confident that discovering and tending to their needs will start immediately.
My greatest strength is that it's easy to meet me and to talk with me. I'm naturally interested in people's stories, what and how they think, what they want. I'm very collaborative, and people sense quickly that I'm here to engage and to help. People feel accepted and safe when we talk. I'm brave. I ask lots of questions and people are sometimes surprised by their directness. We build trust in each other by being authentic and honest as discuss sometimes hard or awkward questions. I'm
Ultimately, I help patients build acceptance, strength and resilience. With strength and resilience, patients can take the time to understand why they're living like they are and why they can't simply wish to be different. With acceptance they befriend themselves, nurture themselves and are gentle with themselves; they learn to feel power and quiet joy from their self-awareness. I'm best with people who know they're unhappy with how their life is going, how they feel or function day to day or in specific situations, and want to live differently. I think it's important to move past vague discomfort with themselves and their circumstances. and to start building the person they hope to be.
I use this technique to facilitate increased feelings of agency and control by giving clients an explanation for how they come to experience uncomfortable emotions, unpleasant thoughts or harmful actions.
I provide psychoeducation about the importance of sleep and some of the mechanisms that are affected by poor sleep. I use knowledge of CBT-I techniques to introduce routine into client's lives and to increase hope that they can overcome a strongly negative influence in their lives.
1 rating with written reviews
August 15, 2025
Enjoyed speaking with Chris. Made me comfortable opening up about what's going on. Just a first session but there may be light at the end of the tunnel.