The Retreat Counseling Center

David Cook  is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who completed his master’s degree in clinical psychology at Pepperdine University. David has extensive experience working in the field of chemical dependency with adults and adolescents at all levels of care. He has worked with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and diversion programs to provide counseling and early interventions for adolescents. David has treated families, adults, and adolescents in a private practice setting for the past 5 years. In addition to treating individuals with depression and anxiety, he has experience working with couples and adolescents, and specializes in treating men. His passion for working with clients is rooted in solution focused and empathetic approach, which focuses on client strengths. When out of the office David loves spending time in the outdoors, fly fishing, hiking, backpacking and camping. He’s an avid power lifter and martial artist currently studying Brazilian Jiu Ji...

As a licensed Marriage & Family Therapists working in Orange County, CA, we have the privilege of doing therapy with a wide array of individuals struggling with different life issues. We feel extremely blessed and honored to have the privilege of journeying alongside people during difficult times of their lives and to be present as people begin to feel better and find renewed hope. At times therapy can feel like a scary process, and it takes a lot of courage to reach out and ask for help. Because we are keenly aware of this ourselves, we work very hard to be as real, genuine, and authentic as we know how — to help each of our clients feel as safe as they possibly could during the therapy process. As licensed therapists, some of the common issues that are presented in our office include: As Licensed Therapists, some of the common challenges we help our clients overcome are: Depression Anxiety Marriage Evaluations Spiritual Issues Addiction/Substance Abuse ...

Perusing the marriage help section of your local bookstore will introduce you to many authors writing about the need for being “sacrificial” in your marriage — or putting your partner first.  Makes sense right?!  “Marriage experts” on the Internet are generally writing the same thing too: To have a happy marriage, put your partner first. At first glance, most of us can get behind this traditional, time-honored, and well-intended piece of advice to be sacrificial partners, but unfortunately, the simplicity with this idea is missing critical elements of relationship dynamics that are often at the root of couples not doing well. For some, putting yourself first, above your partner, is what will positively change the course your relationship and what is often needed to have a satisfying and lasting marriage.  Say what?! In all relationships, each person falls somewhere on the Dominant / Passive continuum. As we generally reside on one side of the continuum, our pa...

As the summer is beginning to wind down, and wanting to take advantage of the remaining great weather, I decided to take my 7 year old nephew on a camping trip. Before leaving for the trip, my sister (his mother) and I spoke on the phone and she sternly warned me: “Quinn, please be careful with him this weekend — he’s coming to an age where he wants to do everything on his own and doesn’t want any influence from adults”. I said, “OK” a little nervously, and wondered if this was going to be a frightening weekend trying to corral an obstinate, high-energy, 7-year-old? Was my memory of the sweet-natured boy I had seen just a few months earlier completely wrong? Thankfully, my nephew wasn’t nearly as “independent” as I had feared he might have been and we had a wonderful time together. However, he is 7 and just like any 7-year-old, he is at times in need of limits. So the trip offered me a chance to reflect on, and work at implementing healthy limit setting. Throughout the we...

Hello, my name is Anna and I encourage clients to see beyond their symptoms to reach their goals and enhance their sense of well-being. I am extremely proactive and believe in offering the most natural Holistic approach to help people reach the best version of themselves. I provide a safe and down-to-earth environment for my clients to express themselves. I believe that developing new healthy ways of thinking can lead to a healthy mind and body. I specialize in helping people with trauma, addiction, grief, infertility & women’s issues. When working with clients, I draw on Eastern and Western approaches to wholeness and I rely on therapy modalities such as solution focused brief therapy, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, equine therapy and family systems therapy, all of which studies have shown are particularly effective in treating problems individuals may face. I am 100% committed to the success of my clients and we will work together in your healing process to hel...

Working with couples and watching relationships grow and blossom is such a gratifying experience. As a licensed Marriage Therapists in Orange County, our education, expertise, and professional training revolve around healing and helping couples become unstuck from the painful patterns that many couples fall in. We have so much faith in the potential that most couples are able to work through many of their most difficult situations — even the ones that feel certain they have lost all hope. If this is you, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Couples Counseling can be a powerful experience that unlocks newfound hope and happiness. Being a Couples Counselor in Orange County with a divorce rate close to 70%, we have found it very important to look at struggling marriages within the context of our Orange County culture to makes sense of some of the common marital pitfalls. Some of the common challenges we help our couples in counseling overcome are: Affair Recovery; Couples Coun...

Valentines’ Day is a holiday that many people don’t take too seriously, but  you simply can’t avoid it all together and do nothing , or else you’d be in big trouble with your loved one. So, we typically don’t pay much attention to the holiday until the week before (or a few days before) as our anxiety about “what to do”, or “what to buy” starts to creep up. Chocolate? That’s cliché. Jewelry? OK. But still cliché. The list is long for the many, guilt-reducing, obligatory, gift ideas but nothing really seems to feel right. SNL did a skit a few weeks ago on the ridiculousness of some of our Valentine’s gifts. It made me think about what would be a really great Valentine’s Day gift. It’s a holiday that is supposed to be honoring your significant other — a way of saying “I love you” on this particular day. The Best Valentine’s Day Gift of All What if you saved your money on buying some cheesy, cliché, not-very-thoughtful gift from CVS this year and invited your significant...

Struggling with substance abuse can have devastating consequences on the lives of individuals and their families involved. Through my work as a licensed Therapist in Orange County treating thousands of addicts and alcoholics, I have a clear understanding of what’s needed (and what’s not needed) for individuals and families to recover from the devastation of drugs and alcohol.  If you’re tired of the short-term successes you’ve achieved in sobriety, only to relapse again, please contact me.  I truly believe freedom from addiction is very achievable with the right tools and the right process. Therapy & Addiction Counseling Maintaining sobriety and recovering from drugs and alcohol is an extremely complex treatment process and needs to be treated as such for the best hope of sustained sobriety and recovery. Addiction counseling is an important part in the early stages of the recovery process where people are looking for first-steps & basic tools to maintain so...

As a licensed Marriage & Family Therapists working in Orange County, CA, we have the privilege of doing therapy with a wide array of individuals struggling with different life issues. We feel extremely blessed and honored to have the privilege of journeying alongside people during difficult times of their lives and to be present as people begin to feel better and find renewed hope. At times therapy can feel like a scary process, and it takes a lot of courage to reach out and ask for help. Because we are keenly aware of this ourselves, we work very hard to be as real, genuine, and authentic as we know how — to help each of our clients feel as safe as they possibly could during the therapy process. As licensed therapists, some of the common issues that are presented in our office include: Depression Anxiety Marriage Evaluations Spiritual Issues Addiction/Substance Abuse Codependency Relationship Struggles Men’s Issues Women’s Issues Infertility Chal...

Valentines’ Day is a holiday that many people don’t take too seriously, but  you simply can’t avoid it all together and do nothing , or else you’d be in big trouble with your loved one. So, we typically don’t pay much attention to the holiday until the week before (or a few days before) as our anxiety about “what to do”, or “what to buy” starts to creep up. Chocolate? That’s cliché. Jewelry? OK. But still cliché. The list is long for the many, guilt-reducing, obligatory, gift ideas but nothing really seems to feel right. SNL did a skit a few weeks ago on the ridiculousness of some of our Valentine’s gifts. It made me think about what would be a really great Valentine’s Day gift. It’s a holiday that is supposed to be honoring your significant other — a way of saying “I love you” on this particular day. The Best Valentine’s Day Gift of All What if you saved your money on buying some cheesy, cliché, not-very-thoughtful gift from CVS this year and invited your significant...