Brian Olden
Support for families and life transitions
- Credentials
- LCSW
- Experience
- 45 years
- Licensed in
- California
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About Brian
Brian Olden is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) in California with 45 years of experience. He draws on long practice to help people facing relationship struggles, parenting stress, grief, trauma, anxiety, and life transitions. His tone is steady and practical, aimed at parents and families looking for clear guidance and real change.
He uses a mix of approaches rather than a single method. Sessions focus on setting goals together and building on practical strengths.
Background and approach
He pays attention to how family roles and communication shape problems and solutions. He also brings experience with trauma, including military-related and sexual trauma. Brian has worked with individuals, couples, and families across many stages of life.
He can assist with care-giver stress, blended family issues, adoption and foster care concerns, and challenges tied to aging and chronic illness. He emphasizes finding strategies that fit a family’s everyday routines. In therapy he helps people name the problems, try new ways of talking with one another, and test small changes that can lead to better patterns.
He aims to make steps feel manageable for busy parents and caregivers. He also supports people dealing with career shifts, impulsivity, and mood concerns. People who choose him can expect a collaborative process that honors individual goals and cultural differences.
Brian encourages clients to recognize their existing strengths and to build practical plans that fit family life.
How Brian brings proven approaches to online family work
Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening and understanding a person’s priorities first. The therapist follows the client’s lead and helps shape goals that fit daily life, which can be useful for parents balancing many demands.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, breaks problems into thoughts, feelings, and actions and tests small changes to see if they help. It is practical for anxiety, depression, sleep problems, and managing stress tied to parenting or work.
Emotionally-Focused Therapy, or EFT, looks at patterns in close relationships and helps partners or family members shift how they respond to each other. EFT can help with intimacy issues, communication breakdowns, and rebuilding trust after conflict.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. Brian will discuss options with each person or family and choose methods together based on needs, goals, and preferences. That collaborative process helps make sessions feel relevant and manageable.
Online therapy offers flexibility for busy families. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation from home, phone sessions can fit into tight schedules, and live chat or text-based messaging helps people check in between longer sessions. These options support consistent care while making it easier to balance therapy with parenting, work, and caregiving responsibilities.
Client-Centered Therapy
The direction comes from you rather than from a set programme. The therapist offers a warm, non-judgemental space to think out loud and work at your own pace. Online, this rests on the relationship rather than on being in the same room.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT looks at the link between what you think, how you feel, and what you do. You work on noticing unhelpful patterns and practising steadier responses. It suits online sessions well, because much of the work happens between appointments and can be talked through from anywhere.
Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
Attends to the emotions underneath a recurring argument or distance, and to the attachment needs driving them. Often used where a relationship keeps returning to the same painful loop.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Relationship issues
- Trauma and abuse
- Depression
Also works with
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Divorce and separation
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- First responder issues
- Grief
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Parenting issues
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Stress, Anxiety
- Traumatic brain injury
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 45 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English
Next step
Talk to Brian
- Takes a few minutes
- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point