Ardel S. Payne, MFT, Ph.D.

• Adult Attachment Treatment & Assessment (AAI)
• Attachment Focused Family Therapy
• Adoption
• Depression/Anxiety/OCD
• Adolescent Girls
• Relationship Issues
• Grief & Loss
• Parenting Issues
• Child Therapy

Education:

• Ph.D., Clinical Psychology, California Graduate School of Psychology
• M.A., Marriage, Family & Child Therapy, Santa Clara University
• B.A., Biblical Studies & Philosophy, Grace University

Member:

• California Association of Marriage & Family Therapists (CAMFT)
• Registered Clinician, ATTACh

Specialized Training:

• Attachment-Focused Family Therapy (Dan Hughes, Ph.D.)
• Gottman Institute (Marital Therapy)

Over the years of working with people, I have developed a great respect for each person’s unique story, their individuality and complexity as well as their capacity for change.

You may come in asking for help with depression and/or anxiety, and together we discover the root causes and develop strategies to alleviate the pain. Maybe there is a person in your life who you have trouble dealing with and you want to understand why they trigger you so you don’t feel so out of control. Some clients seek treatment because their spouse has told them “I can’t live like this anymore,” referring to behaviors such as putting up walls or hostility – often behaviors that you don’t even fully understand.

You may have a nagging sense that there are unresolved issues from your childhood that keep you from being truly happy or feeling worthy of success, or are interfering with your ability to relate well to others. Many things that we struggle with such as anxiety, depression, or addiction really have their roots in childhood trauma.

Maybe you are the parents of an adolescent girl who is grappling with identity issues or is engaging in self-destructive behaviors such as cutting or bulimia – things that you feel are beyond your scope as a parent.

You may be adoptive parents, wondering why parenting seems so difficult with your child and deeply desiring to form a strong attachment which they seem to resist.

You may want to understand how your own attachment experiences are now influencing your parenting.

Perhaps you are going through a divorce and are seeking a therapist to help your children cope with all the change and confusion.

With these and other issues, I use a variety of modalities such as attachment-focused family therapy, narrative therapy, cognitive-behavioral and psycho-drama techniques, and play therapy. I use the Adult Attachment Interview, which is a particularly powerful clinical tool to help parents understand how their own attachment experiences have influenced them. We target areas for healing and change so the painful legacies do not persist. I am passionate about helping parents because I strongly believe optimal parenting is the key factor in preventive mental health. I am keenly interested in understanding how the emerging field of interpersonal neurobiology can be integrated into the counseling process – helping clients to understand their thoughts and behaviors in terms of how their brain is structured – and how therapy can change the neural pathways in the brain. Even more important than modality is the therapeutic relationship itself that creates a safe, structured, and confidential environment for growth and healing to occur.

I work with people from a variety of backgrounds and am particularly aware of the stresses of life in Silicon Valley. My clients range from engineers and high-tech executives, attorneys, stay-at-home moms, adolescents and adoptees. I welcome clients who want to integrate their spiritual beliefs into the treatment process.

Psychotherapy is an investment in yourself, whether targeting specific issues or as a tool for self-awareness or grappling with the meaning of life.

Please call me and I will be happy to talk with you about finding the help you need.