Portland Therapy Center
Richard Halpern

Richard Halpern (he/him)

Professional Counselor

M.A., Trauma Informed Coach

Parenting is amazing + challenging! Let's create a "parenting toolkit" co-parents can use now to positively impact your child's behavior.

Client Status

accepting clients

Contact

541 490-1551

2304 E Burnside St.

Portland, 97214

10211 SW Barbur Blvd.

Portland, Oregon 97219

Email Website Schedule Now

At a Glance

Me

Rate: $70-$130

Provides free initial consultation

Provides telehealth services

Practicing Since: 1996

Languages: English

Services

  • Individual
  • Family
  • Child
  • Relationship
  • Teen

Insurances Accepted

  • Out of Pocket
  • Out of Network

My Ideal Client

Any parent with a parenting challenge! Sole, coupled, separated, or divorced - open to exploring positive ways to co-parent, build your parenting confidence, and working with your children to team up to create a happier home. Any couple seeking to resolve communication break downs, unpack different attachment styles, defining relationship roles. The goal: to feel seen, heard, and understood. Teenagers who are struggling with teen life. Wanting to feel good/better about themselves.

My Approach to Helping

My counseling approach is practical and down to earth. My focus is on positive parenting and couple strengthening strategies, which are easy to apply right away. I also work with couples to resolve conflicts and establish ground rules so that you feel seen, heard, and understood. To help ease your parenting anxiety, we develop a structured plan forward, while emphasizing your strengths and parenting style. You deserve a life feeling balanced, energized, and fun! For separated or divorced parents, we focus on co-parenting as a team, even after a difficult breakup. For sole parents or dealing with a relationship ending, we focus on self care and community resources. My practice is affirming to ALL parents and couples from diverse relationship orientations, LGBTQ+ friendly, and empathetic to the trauma of tough break ups. It starts with a deep breath and a free consultation. Sliding fee scale. In keeping with social distance during this pandemic, all sessions are via video.

My Personal Beliefs and Interests

My career has traversed working with parents in a huge variety of settings. I coordinated a public School Counseling program K-12 for 16 years and am a licensed School Counselor in Oregon. I worked with parents on the many issues that impact kids at school. I also coordinated an alternative program for children age 11-17 arrested for minor crimes. We worked with parents to teach empathy to their child. I currently teach the class: Helping Children Cope With Family Change for Multnomah Family Court. This is exclusively for separating & divorcing parents. My Masters Degree is in Counseling from the University of Montana; my B. A. in Psychology is from the University of Tennessee. I'm certified as a Trauma Informed Coach, a Certified Positive Discipline Parent Educator, and a Master Trainer with the Oregon Registry (workshops for child care professionals). As a divorced father, I positively co-parented raising 2 wonderful kids with their mom.

Techniques I Use

Specialties

  • Couples Counseling External link

    I integrate a couples counseling approach to positively learn how to co-parent as a team or resolve conflicts. Areas of focus: Developing positive habits around communication, understanding our unique communication styles, defining our relationship roles, and discovering our shared (or different) values. Empathy is key. Our goal? To feel seen, heard and understood, all to foster better connection, intimacy, and trust from a non-judgmental place.

  • Intervention External link

    My focus is offering practical interventions as a strategy to reduce the likelihood of conflict. Example: If a child is prone to (what feels like) too many temper tantrums, what can we do to help both the child and parent see a pattern in the behavior, and practice self regulation techniques? Solution = stop the tantrum before it ever begins.

  • Humanistic  External link

    A Client Centered approach developed by Carl Rogers was the philosophical core of my Masters and I still bring it into my practice today. It emphasizes a nondirective, nonjudgemental, empathetic approach that empowers and motivates the client in the therapeutic process. This counseling is based on Rogers’ belief that everyone strives for and has the capacity to fulfill his or her own potential.

Issues I Treat

Specialties

  • Relationship / Marriage Issues External link

    I've been teaching the class: 'Helping Children Cope With Family Change' for 4 years as a Parent Educator for Multnomah County Family Court Services. I have met with hundreds of parents in a discussion group format, all of whom are moving through conflict which resulted in a separation or divorce. My approach is to offer practical solutions and experiential exercises to encourage communication.

  • Personal Growth External link

    The experience of raising children is an opportunity self-reflect and to explore your current beliefs about parent-child relationships. The intense personal growth which we can discover though being a parent (and learning from our children) can be affirming, challenging, and incredibly exciting! Personal growth is a constant compass bearing in my Counseling practice. I'm also certified as a Trauma Informed Coach and have lots of familiarity dealing with breakup grief.

  • Parenting External link

    Kudos to you for being open to exploring ways to be better at parenting! This is a hugely rewarding endeavor, but did not come with an instruction manual. I can help! I'm Certified as a Parent Educator in nationally recognized Positive Discipline + Nurturing Parenting Programs. 25+ years experience working with parents, Currently am a Parent Educator for Multnomah Family Court. And, a dad myself!

  • Child or Adolescent Issues External link

    I coordinated a public school counseling program and was a K-12 School Counselor for 16 years. I met with students with personal, academic, career, and family issues (caseload 400+ students). I dealt with just about any problem you can imagine, and did so in an easy going yet structured way students related to.

Contact Richard

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