Patrick J Curran LMFT - Counseling

Counseling - Redding, Red Bluff, and Burney, CA

Welcome to the website for quality couple's, family and individual counseling. I offer psychotherapy from a Christian world view, dealing with a wide range of issues. Some of those issues include: helping couples through difficult times in their marriage, pre-marital counseling, blended family issues, individual therapy, help dealing with being rejected by your partner, help for children of divorced parents, post–traumatic stress, grief and loss, depression and anxiety, old age to name a few.

I am a licensed marriage and family therapist. I was raised in Los Angeles with seven other siblings. My training includes 25 years employed in the field of education and raising my own six children and three step children. I earned a bachelor’s degree in Psychology at the University of New Mexico in 1977, a master’s degree in school counseling from University of LaVerne in 1999 and a master’s degree in counseling psychology from National University in 2006. I was a home school coordinator for nine years in Hayfork and a group home counselor for Open Line Group homes in Redding. Presently, I am serving individuals and couples in Redding, California at the Frisbie Mansion, at 1246 East Street, Suite 8. When school is in session, I serve Corning Union High School District and their students doing therapy through River Cities Counseling, Inc. I am also serving clients at the Pit River Health Center, 36977 Park Ave. in Burney, CA 96013 and sometimes seeing clients in Red Bluff at the Business Connections Building at 332 Pine Street.

A Marriage and Family therapist has a scope of practice that must include relationship problems. I try to give clients the tools necessary for a growing, thriving relationship. In couple's counseling, emotions are very important in diagnosing problems and evaluating strengths and weaknesses in the relationship. Each member of a relationship will have their emotions validated and integrated into the inner workings of their relationship. Working with clients with pre-marital or dating issues, anger, control issues, step-family issues, affairs, jealousy, mid-life crisises, commitment and sexual issues are all areas I can give strong direction and correction. Help and hope is on the way from a Christian world view. By that, I mean that Judeo-Christian principals do work, and enhance all good relationships. All the best "tried and true" psychological methods and treatments have their foundations in biblical principals. I am here to help, not to judge, to come along side and to encourage people in need. For a biography of my life, go to Amazon.com and order my book: "Buckle Up, Its Going to be a Wild Ride."

Areas of Expertise Include:

• Couple counseling
• Victims of physical or sexual abuse as children
• Children of divorced parents
• Blended family issues
• Depression in men, women and teens
• Anxiety
• Pre-marital counseling
• Certified trauma therapist
• Christian / religious issues
• Student / teacher conflicts
• ADHD / difficult and energized children
• Male and female mid-life crisis issues
• Adjustment issues: career, loss, divorce, relationship changes

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About Patrick J. Curran - Background & Experience

Patrick J. Curran - Meet counselor Patrick J. Curran and learn about his background and experience.

Contact

Contact information for Patrick J. Curran, LMFT

ACTIVE LISTENING

Active listening in an execise to help couples slow down and listen completely to each other and to acknowledge and affirm your spouse.

Anxietyandpanic

Many people are overwhelmed by anxiety, stress, worry and panic. Find out how to manage and control your thinking so that anxiety is a thing of the past..

Boundaries

People take advantage of you because you do not set a personal property line, or a boundary. We get to decide what we are responsible for and what we are not.

Boundary Development

Say no to the bad, yes to the good

Children of Divorced Parents

Children who have to endure the splitting up of their parents and family suffer in so many ways. How can you help them through the transition and provide a safe, secure and happy place for them.

Communication101

This is a way to chart your communication style and analyse the results of your interaction

Depression

Depression is the most common mental health issue in the United States. Therapists use the Beck's Depression Inventory, a tool with a lot of history, to help evaluate suspected depressed clients.

Difficult Child

Almost all discipline models are designed for the average child. This approach is for the difficult, intense, challenging, over-energized, or energy challenged child.

Distressed Couples

Many distressed couples feel they have lost or are losing their emotional connection to their partner that they had in the beginning but through unforeseen circumstances they have lost it.

Anger and Our Distorted Thinking

Anger is often magnified because our thinking distorts reality. By checking ourselves and our thinking, we can catch misdirected thoughts and stifle the escalation of anger.

EFT - Emotionally Focused Therapy

Couples therapy which focuses on each member of a relationship and their emotional evaluation of the relationship.

Importance of Conducting Family Meetings

Family meetings become neccessary when there is a communication breakdown between members but regular meetings ensure clear expectations and the feelings of belonging.

Freedom and Responsibility

Many teens want a lot of freedoms but have not been trained by their parents that you can not have freedom without being responsible. They go hand in hand.

Forgiveness -Antidote for bitterness, resentment or revenge

Bitterness, resentment and the desire for revenge for someone who has hurt you is a very natural feeling. But it will rip you apart and make you a very unhappy person.

Grief and loss

Each of us handle the loss of someone/ something important to us in different ways. But the similarities with people are common. Denial, shock, anger, sadness, fear, blame, acceptance.

Healthy Relationships

Healthy relationships have mutual respect, safety, mutual support and encouragement, and respect. Unhealthy relationships have name calling, criticism, threats, controlling behavior and violence.

Level of Intimacy

How intimate should a partner allow their partner to be with the opposite sex?

Lots of Feelings

Here is a list of feelings. This has helped me to identify my feelings and to embrace them and to be able to communicate them to my favorite people.

Love and Logic Parenting

Love and Logic challenges parents to allow the natural consequences of your child's decisions to be felt by them. Allowing consequenses to teach life leasons are most valuable to kids.

Loving your Husband

Loving your husband is not an easy task. It is a life long commitment. The key is to learn to assert your point of view with respect, patience and love.

Manage your anger

To understand anger, we must be aware of our own physiology and put into practice calming techniques when triggers present themselves.

Negative Self-talk

There are four negative subpersonalities that are prominent in people with anxiety and panic. They are the worrier, the critic, the victim, and the perfectionist.

Negative Triad

The way we view ourselves is usually the same way we view our world or surrounding people (family, people we work with, friends) and the way we view our future.

Our Inner Child

Most of us learn to stifle or deny our "inner child" in favor of what we are expected to be in the adult world to our own demise.

Pornography

Porn destroys dignity, robs male potency, reduces sexual pleasure, encourages isolation, and does not increase the sexual experience.

Post Traumatic Stress

Before a traumatic event you feel like life is predictable, has meaning and things make sense. After, you realize things are out of your control, you are vulnerable and you no longer feel safe.

Self-esteem and self-dislike

Self-esteem is the strongest motivator for an individual to work hard and to succeed. Self- dislike is a great handicap in a person's life. This page will help you to build self-esteem.

Self -Harm

Self-harm is the determined resolve to intentionally harm your own body. One in ten teenagers will deliberately harm themselves at a ratio of 2:1, girls to boys.

Sexualization of Girls

Too many young women believe that their only purpose in life is to please a man sexually. They have become a sex object to please others. Their value is in their sex appeal, only.

Six Anger Payoffs

There are at least six short term anger payoffs but those payoffs are short-lived and the long range deficites harm your relationships and reinforces the use of anger again and again.

Childhood Sexual Abuse

Survivors of childhood physical or sexual abuse carry scars of their trauma throughout their life. How they have coped is nothing to be ashamed of. Listed are the coping strategies of the abused.

Teen Dating

The drama, confusion and pain in our local high schools runs high with competition for the choice popular boys or girls. There is a wide range of perspectives among the kiids on what is happening.

What is love?

So many spouses tell me "But I love him" or "I love her". That is so sweet except I wonder if they really know what love is. Here is a great example of love from the Bible.

Why Feel Feelings?

By allowing ourselves to identify, acknowledge, and feel our feelings, we avoid the devastating physical and emotional effects of burying them, repressing them, or ignoring them.