With Spring comes new beginnings! Welcome to the practice of Dr. Wendy Denham, North Star Families.

Your family is defined by you.

Dr Wendy Denham and team use a collaborative, reflective-based approach to therapy to create personalized plans to guide families towards more stability, ease and joy.

Individuals and Families of all kinds are welcome here.

Families and Children
We support families and children with mental health, emotional regulation and communication challenges, during periods of anxiety and depression, during life and identity transitions, through loss and trauma. Through a neuroaffirming, LGBTQ+ affirming and wholistic approach—assessment, recommendations, and targeted interventions—we provide meaningful, short-term or long-term, flexible, support.
Adults
Individual therapy is an opportunity to explore patterns of thoughts, feelings, and relationships. We use a reflective, trauma-informed approach to support people to move through barriers and achieve goals in their personal and professional lives. Our team includes specialists in EMDR treatment, psychodynamic psychotherapy, grief and loss, and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and The Gottman Method for couples, OCD and anxiety.
Parenting Support
We offer educational workshops to support you alongside other parents experiencing similar journeys. There we invite parents to bring awareness to underlying thoughts, feelings and belief systems that shape your parenting and bring in experts from both within and outside the practice. We also offer parent and baby sensory music groups at private residences across Los Angeles.
You are a north star family – welcome!

Years of specialized experience.

Dr. Wendy Denham (she/her) has been a licensed psychologist, supervisor and researcher for over twenty years, training therapists nationally and internationally in the assessment and application of a reflective approach with parents.

Dr. Denham has coded hundreds of interviews with patients to assess reflective capacity for Columbia and UCLA universities and has witnessed firsthand its protective power, both in her private clinical practice and as a Senior Trainer for two evidence-based parenting interventions at the Center for Reflective Communities.

Her area of specialty is supporting parents by providing parenting education, psychotherapy, and helping them develop deeper awareness of the contribution of the dual contributions of neurobiology and attachment in every parent child relationship. She is also a family therapist and works with children of all age ranges, including parents with infants, toddlers and preschoolers. She has been published about her research and clinical work chapter on assessment, prevention and early intervention in the Guildford Press published ‘Handbook of Psychodynamic Approaches to Psychopathology’, which won an award for its scholarship and presents a comprehensive overview of best practices in family and child work today. Dr. Denham has hand picked her team of therapists to provide a broad range of specialties to afford the best care for individuals, families and children.

 

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Research into child attachment security shows that a parent’s ability to acknowledge and reflect on one’s own feelings of sadness, anger, or rejection builds a capacity to tolerate these feelings in our children.
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Self-paced
Research on the importance of secure attachment between parents and children, part of the larger field of developmental psychology, has demonstrated that secure parent child relationships are anchored by reflective capacity, which provides the foundation for lifelong mental health.
Course

The North Star Journal

As part of our commitment to advocacy, transparency, resourcing and education we will be posting articles and resources about our work, as well as the work of other pediatric specialists.

Staying in the Unknown: Supporting kids as they explore Gender

Though there are cultural frameworks for understanding transitions across the span of a child’s life — ‘terrible twos,’ teenage rebellion,…

Jason Karasev, LMFT
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
Raising a Neurodivergent Child

I was 36 when I saw March of the Penguins, and this sweet documentary inspired some life force within me to bring…

Dr. Debra Brause, PhD
Clinical Psychologist
Should Autistic Children Be ‘Trained’ to Socialize?

One afternoon, I received an email from a doctor with a therapy request for a mother/daughter pair: “Self-esteem issues, anger, and resentment towards mother’s…

Dr. Debra Brause, PhD
Clinical Psychologist
What is Neuropsychological Testing and it’s Role in Advocating for your Child

As a practice, we sometimes partner with a neuropsychologist when we feel like a there is more to understand about…

Dr. Nora Goudsmit, PhD
Clinical Psychologist
Why are we a Neurodiversity Affirming practice and what does that mean?

Neurodivergent refers to individuals whose brain functioning differs from what is considered “typical.”

Dr. Wendy Denham, PhD
Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Researcher
What is educational therapy and who benefits from it?

Working with a learning specialist is transformative for neurodivergent learners. Science based educational programming helps your child unearth their learning style and…

Racquel Ward
Learning Specialist
What is Occupational Therapy?

Occupational therapy, otherwise known as OT, can look very different depending on the setting. You may have heard of OTs…

Allie Ticktin
Founder Play 2 Progress
A Script to Help Parents Talk to Kids about Divorce

It’s understandable to feel nervous about this conversation. However, after helping many parents through it to the other side, these…

Dr. Wendy Denham, PhD
Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Researcher