License 2769
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Helen Gallant, LCSW, BCD | |
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San Francisco Office |
McKinleyville Office |
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Evening Appointments Available | |
Whom you choose for your therapist may be
one of the most important decisions you’ll ever make.
San Francisco Office - (415) 751-8030 • McKinleyville Office - (707) 840-0396
About Counseling
Couples / Individuals & Temperament Counseling
My approach has proven to help couples and individuals create success in their relationships. For 25 years, I have specialized in marriage counseling and individual therapy.
When there is anger, spouses feel as if the love that was once there has disappeared. In reality the love is only buried underneath all the anger and disappointment. Couples make the mistake of thinking that the disappearance of the love that was once there is proof that divorce is inevitable. These couples cannot imagine how that love could possibly return. The love does return, automatically, when new skills are in place.
Healthy anger is useful. But anger in couples and individuals that doesn’t lead to better relationships needs “anger improvement.” After anger is improved and disappointment is fully dealt with, couples and individuals describe that their love is deeper, stronger and more solid than before.
If one partner enters couple counseling genuinely looking at and changing oneself in order to make the relationship work but the other partner is not willing to look at how one is contributing to the problems, couples counseling doesn’t exist. It’s really two people having individual therapy under the guise of couples counseling. Individual therapy is nonetheless very important. Couples counseling achieves more if both partners actively work toward improving their way of relating and communicating.
Temperament Counseling
Clients who follow through do well. Some achieve astonishing results. I think this is partly true because of consideration of temperament in all of my therapeutic work. Every client learns what temperament they are on the Myers Briggs, Enneagram and Highly Sensitive Person Scale. This explains why certain problems exist for them and points a way to resolving those.
Dr. Pierce Howard in The Owner’s Manual Of The Brain states that temperament has great importance in each of us from the time we are infants through all our relationships. Temperament according to Dr. Howard accounts for at least 60% or our personalities and behavior.
Most therapists have little training, experience, or expertise in incorporating temperament into their diagnosis or treatment of couples or individuals. I have 25 years experience integrating temperament into my way of working with couples, teenagers and individuals. I am currently writing about temperament in therapeutic work and will be giving seminars to psychotherapists on Temperament Therapy in the near future.
When individuals learn vital things about the genetic basis of temperament, they experience relief and appreciation for themselves and for others.
Temperament Therapy provides the know-how to raise responses and consciousness to a higher level. Someone said, “The greatest high is consciousness.”
