about Me
Hello there, so you would like to know a little bit more about me. First off, thanks for taking the time to read my bio. As you probably already guessed, I am Geoff Wrenn, and I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist #MFC112671 and have been practicing as a Psychotherapist for over 7 years. I use a Narrative Therapy approach to help you understand your unique story and situation. I have an extensive background in cultural studies and I seek to understand your own personal context within a conversational therapeutic setting. I am currently a University Professor at Cal State University, San Bernardino in the College of Education, Special Education Rehabilitation and Counseling department. I was also a University Professor for 10 years before coming to the field of psychology and I taught courses in; sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy and a lot of other classes. I am currently pursuing my doctorate in International Psychology from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology and have traveled to Ghana and Rwanda in a professional capacity.
My background allows me to utilize those disciplines and help you with any problem that might be causing you discomfort or distress. I seek to understand you and your unique context, by looking at your life through, social, emotional, relational and analytical perspectives and frameworks. I also draw upon many of my personal experiences traveling abroad and the different ways people understand mental health. Using a Narrative Therapy approach, I have assisted individuals, couples, and kids with a wide variety of concerns (depression, anxiety, questions of sexual identity, sexual orientation, and marital conflicts). Everyone has a unique story to tell, and my mission is to help you explore all of yours so that you can have a better understanding of negative patterns, issues in your career, understanding and expressing your feelings and thoughts, possible reasons for your depression or anxiety, and many other life issues that are weighing you down. By exploring your life and the events you have experienced, I can help you overcome the obstacles that are disrupting your life.
Services
Affordable Private Pay Counseling Services
Cost should not become a barrier to therapy. I offer affordable 60 minute, private pay counseling for individuals (kids, teens, & adults) and couples.
At the moment I am not paneled through an Insurance company but may be in the future. For those that qualify through their insurance plans, I can provide a superbill that you can submit to be reimbursed.
Payments can be made with cash, check, or credit card via Venmo.
Call or text today, or inquire by email:
(714) 851-9245
“The healing gesture … is not intended to explain it away or fill in the abyss but simply to affirm that they are not alone, that our common madness is a matter of degree, that we’re all siblings in the same night of truth. The healing gesture is not to explain madness if that means to explain it away but to recognize it as a common fate, to affirm our community and solidarity.”
CONTACT ME
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Narrative QUotes
“Today, psychologists have a favorite word, and that word is maladjusted. I tell you today that there are some things in our social system to which I am proud to be maladjusted. I shall never be adjusted to lynch mobs, segregation, economic in equalities, “The madness of militarism,” and self-defeating physical violence....The salvation of the world lies in the maladjusted.”
“Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.”
“The problem is the problem, the person is not the problem.”
“We know what we do, we think we know what we think, but do we know what what we do does?”
“The most powerful therapeutic process I know is to contribute to rich story development.”
“The healing gesture … is not intended to explain it away or fill in the abyss but simply to affirm that they are not alone, that our common madness is a matter of degree, that we’re all siblings in the same night of truth. The healing gesture is not to explain madness if that means to explain it away but to recognize it as a common fate, to affirm our community and solidarity.”
“And what of solidarity? I am thinking of a solidarity that is constructed by therapists who refuse to draw a sharp distinction between their lives and the lives of others, who refuse to marginalize those persons who seek help, by therapists who are constantly confronting the fact that if faced with the circumstances such that provide the context of troubles of others, they just might not be doing nearly as well themselves.”
“A goal of our work is to encourage awkward conversations, conversations that are usually constrained by such fears as being inappropriately racist, ageist, elitist or sexist, and to move through the gateways of anger and protest that occur in such conversations with a discourse that provides for and respects differences.”
“If you don’t believe, to the bottom of your soul, that people are not their problems and that their difficulties are social and personal constructions, then you won’t be seeing these transformations. When Epston or White are in action, you can tell they are absolutely convinced that people are not their problems. Their voices, their postures, their whole beings radiate possibility and hope. They are definitely under the influence of optimism.”
“Therapists are “trafficking in human possibilities” rather than settled certainties.”
“In spite of all of our education telling us that we do know, we try to listen for what we don’t know.”
“Problems develop when people internalize conversations that restrain them to a narrow description of self. These stories are experienced as oppressive because they limit the perception of available choices.”
“The map of verbal description does not fully represent the territory of lived experience, including the richness of visual symbolic processes, feelings, emotions, and sensations.”
“In countering the effects of a problem-saturated story, it is important to develop as rich, detailed, and meaningful a counter-story as possible.”
“Ultimately, happiness comes down to choosing between the discomfort of becoming aware of your mental afflictions and the discomfort of being ruled by them. ”
“We believe it is our responsibility as therapists to cultivate a growing awareness of the dominant (and potentially dominating) stories in our society and to develop ways of collaboratively examining the effects of those stories when we sense them at work in the lives and relationships of the people who consult with us.”
“‘Sometimes a dissonance will break through and pull you into intense involvement’ and sometimes push you away from a participating stance.”
“Every time we ask a question, we’re generating a possible version of a life.”
“What ought to be interesting...is the unfolding of a lived life rather than the confirmation such a chronicle provides for some theory.”
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view”