Top 5 Myths About Family Counseling in Riverside CA (and the Truth Behind Them)
You know you want some help for your family. You love your kids (or your parents) but you just keep having the same go-nowhere conversations. Everyone is frustrated with everyone else. Feelings have been hurt. You don’t know what else to do and are ready for some help. You’ve thought about getting family counseling in Riverside CA but aren’t sure where to start. Maybe you’ve been talking to friends and they’ve told you some things about counseling that don’t sound quite right. But you’re not a therapist, you don’t know. There’s a lot of misinformation about therapy and I’m here to help clear some things up for you. In this post I’m going to respond to the top myths I hear about family counseling in Riverside.
If you came here and want more of an overview of how to find the right therapist for you - please see this article. Finding the right Marriage Counselor.
Myth #1 – Therapists Just Listen and Nod
Truth: Family therapy is an active, collaborative process. The therapist is active: directing and correcting with compassion and validation.
Good therapy should look like every member in the room feeling seen, heard, and understood. You will learns skills to use outside of the therapy and room and leave hopeful at the end of a session. Progress over perfection is the goal for the individual and the family.
When I work with a family, I try to get a sense of personality and pay attention to the nonverbals I’m seeing. I pay close attention to the reactions and tones and words each member uses. This helps us all understand the meaning and tone beyond just the words someone says.
I meet each member separately to understand their point of view and what their role is within the family system. I make sure members know that I’m on the side of what’s best for the family, and that means everyone will be validated and challenged. I speak compassionately, warmly, directly and identify when certain patterns are playing out and help everyone get out of their own way. You can expect to learn communication skills that will help you have better conversations.
Myth #2 – You Have to Be ‘Really Sick’ to Go to Therapy
Truth: Therapy is for anyone seeking growth, healing, or support.
People come to family therapy for lots of reasons. Sometimes the family is “really sick” but more often families come to therapy because they feel disconnected, lack trust in one another, have made parenting mistakes, are going through something rough together (like an illness, move, or death in the family), or just want to be closer with one another.
I worked with a family where there was a lot of misunderstanding amongst the members. Many family members were unhappy even though they loved each other. The patriarch of the family felt responsible for the functioning of the family and felt like he was failing because there was so much unhappiness and misunderstanding. He tried hard to get everyone to get along. But his efforts to help felt like control to the other family members, and they pushed back creating more misunderstanding and hurt feelings. We worked together to draw out the love they had for each other, to allow all family members to have a voice, and to work together to find solutions. They created a new dynamic where everyone could be their authentic self, where they were clear on their roles and what kind of help each person wanted and could provide, and where everyone felt more love in their family relationships.
Another family I worked with consisted of a parent and adult child. Some parts of the adult child’s childhood had been hard and the mom didn’t like talking about it because she had been doing her best to raise the child. The adult child saw the mom’s discomfort and felt dismissed. It was very painful. The mother struggled to see how listening to her daughter’s feelings without defensiveness was a crucial part of repair. There was a lot of acknowledgment and remorse the daughter needed from her mom. We worked hard in family therapy to have these conversations. In the end, they both wanted to be close and they were able to get there because they learned the skills in therapy to have hard and healing conversations.
Myth #3 – Family Counseling in Riverside is Impossible to Access
Truth: There are many options to make family counseling accessible
I’ve heard this concern a lot, and it makes sense. Searching for family therapy can feel overwhelming, especially when so many practices do have long waitlists, limited openings, or can’t guarantee you’ll get to work with someone trained in family therapy. The good news is that accessible, high-quality family counseling is out there, and it's worth taking the time to find a practice that truly prioritizes getting you connected with support quickly, rather than leaving you to wait weeks or months just for a first appointment.
That's exactly what we've built here. Our therapists don't keep waitlists, and most families are able to get their first appointment within just 1-2 weeks of calling. Because we specialize in relationships, you'll be working with someone who understands what your family is going through from the very first session. We also protect the quality of care you receive by making sure our therapists aren't overworked, which means you can meet with your therapist every single week, building the kind of consistency that helps you see real progress, faster. And if cost is part of what's holding you back, please know you have options: if you have a PPO plan, we can help guide you through out-of-network reimbursement, and we're proud to be in-network with IEHP as well, so quality care can feel within reach.
Myth #4 – A Family Therapist in Riverside Will Judge Me
Truth: Your therapist is here to help you.
If you feel judged by your therapist, you should talk to your therapist about it and/or consider getting a new therapist. Therapy should feel safe, is confidential, and should feel nonjudgmental while you are vulnerable. Most people come from families with struggles - no one was raised by perfect parents and no one was perfect children. We are people just like you. We get it. We’re here to help, not to judge. A therapist’s job is to create safety, understanding and help you feel comfortable to try new ways of communicating and thinking about things.
Ethically, we are trained to model the skills we teach which helps everyone to feel they can share openly with the therapist’s support. Safety in therapy means even when you feel uncomfortable, the therapist is gentle, warm and honest with you.
Myth #5 – Therapy Takes Forever
Truth: Good therapy helps you reach your goals and then you graduate from therapy.
I’m going to be real with you: I can’t promise that we’ll fix all your problems in a week or even a month. How long therapy takes for your family depends on your goals, your problems, and how much time and energy you have available for change. Sometimes short-term therapy is effective and all that’s needed. If your family is mostly running well and you’re just facing a difficult time such as an elderly family member moving in or a recent adoption or a divorce, family therapy can be short-term. Regardless of how many sessions you have, therapy should feel beneficial, even if it’s uncomfortable or hard at times.
The number one observation I have made as far as how quickly a family gets through therapy is their investment in the sessions and their ability to put that investment into action outside of the therapy room. If therapy is the only work you’re doing, change will be slower. You might feel good at the end of sessions and think that in and of itself means change is happening. In reality, therapy is a commitment to do your part outside of the sessions and committing to listen non-defensively to other members of the family feelings and needs. You will make fast progress if you are vulnerable with your family and are safe to receive how you affect everyone.
There are many approaches to family therapy, and all have merit, sometimes the needs of the family will influence the interventions the family therapist uses in sessions. I typically use a family systems approach along with emotionally focused family interventions. With family systems, I view a family as an emotional unit where individuals are deeply interconnected, meaning a change in one person affects the entire group. In our family systems work we might:
Map Patterns. The therapist uses diagrams called genograms to trace repeating behaviors and conflicts across generations.
Identify Shifting Roles.
Learn communication skills.
Break cycles that cause stress.
Ultimately, the health of the family is the goal which helps to lower anxiety, improve communication, and build stronger, more supportive bonds.
With Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) the focus is on helping parents create an environment in the family where children feel safe and supported. We know parents are doing their best and we can help them see if there are any changes they need to make to help their children feel secure and open up to the parents. When kids open up to parents, parents have a clearer understanding of what’s going on for their kids, which opens up new ways the parents can help. EFFT helps parents to work with their child’s challenging behaviors and set limits when needed. Another crucial element is beginning to use strategies that strengthen and repair their relationships with their children - even if that child is an adult. The therapist provides a supportive space for the parent in sharing their struggles of being a parent or caregiver and guidance from the therapist about ways their emotions and fears might affect the way they show up in their parenting styles. Rarely is any parent malicious and trying to harm their children emotionally - but intent also doesn’t erase impact. Acknowledging your children’s concerns, validating them, showing remorse and regret, apologizing and repairing further through changing behaviors on your end, is the start to a happier, healthier family.
Good therapy will help you understand what’s going wrong in your family, have some skills to course correct (as I described above), and then move you toward not needing me anymore. I don’t think you’re broken and I don’t want to keep you in therapy forever. Let’s get you the support you need and then send you on your way! (You can always come back for a little extra support in the future if needed.)
Other myths that I have heard is that therapy will save or fix relationships - therapy is not always a comfortable process, nor are there any guarantees that the relationship you seek will be the end result. There are a lot of factors that go into any therapy being “successful” and those include the crucial components of all parties coming in with an openness to change and receiving feedback from the Therapist and other members of the family. Additionally, everyone must agree to practice the skills learned in session outside of the session. There is not a magical remedy or equation that exists that will guarantee your family will be healed.
I wish more people knew that though their child may need therapy for individual issues like bullying at school, managing mental health issues etc. - most of the time the child’s behavior is in direct correlation with parenting decisions. If the parents change their behavior, the child’s will usually follow.
Alexis Johnson, LMFT, is a dedicated and creative couples and family therapist in Riverside, CA, who helps partners and families heal old hurts, strengthen connections, and navigate the complex dynamics that shape their relationships. With experience working with individuals, teens, families, and couples, she meets clients exactly where they are and empowers them to create meaningful, lasting change.
Alexis earned her Master’s in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy from Azusa Pacific University and is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California.
Outside the therapy room, she enjoys slow mornings, good books, time with friends, and the same personal growth practices she encourages in her clients—because she believes deeply in practicing what she teaches.
