Timothy W. Chen, Psy.D.

Introduction and Interests: Hello and welcome to Crossroads! My name is Tim and my primary interests in therapy are working with couples and adult individuals. The psychology of men and Asian Americans are also focuses of mine. I have experience working with a wide variety of psychological issues, and a particular area of specialty is relational issues.

Therapeutic Approach: I believe that the cornerstone of individual therapy is the relationship between therapist and client, and through this relationship, the client’s relationships with self and other are reflected. As such, one of my focuses in therapy is to build a strong therapeutic relationship through co-creating mutual goals, relevant tasks, and an emotional bond; the purpose of which is to create understanding of how the past might impact your current behaviors in order to improve your relationships with yourself and other.

In couple’s work, I use a similar approach. I rebuild the safety in a relationship in order to allow for the vulnerable disclosures of how past events lead to current relationship behaviors. The vulnerability creates more empathy in partners which, in turn, begins to reverse the cycles of interaction that foster hostility and resentment.

Background: I received my undergraduate degree from the University of California, Irvine majoring in Psychology and Social Behavior and minoring in English. I received my master’s degree in Clinical Psychology with an Emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy from Pepperdine University. My Doctorate in Clinical Psychology is from the University of Denver’s Graduate School of Professional Psychology. I completed my doctoral internship at the UCI Counseling Center, and I am currently a licensed clinical psychologist.