Elizabeth Arredondo, MA, LPC-S | Director
Elizabeth’s nineteen years of extensive experience and training have well qualified her to work with a diverse client population, and to supervise and train early career therapists. Additionally, she serves as a professional and forensic consultant within her areas of expertise.
Elizabeth began her career working with children on the autism spectrum, providing behavioral therapy and parent training. This passion for serving children led her to a position as clinical director for a non profit residential treatment center for abused children and adolescents. From there, she transitioned into a private practice setting, where she provided counseling for children, adolescents, and adults with a wide variety of diagnoses and struggles. Seeing families in their entirety, she began to more fully recognize the impact of family dynamics on developmental processes. This sensitivity and curiosity led her to extensive training and and research in family focused forensic psychology, with specialization and certification in parenting facilitation and coordination.
Presently, Elizabeth works as director of Houston Family Counseling, where she ensures that all clients, young and old, receive the quality of mental health care she believes should be available to all. She oversees on site training programs for counseling graduate students, post masters interns, and post doctoral psychologists. Elizabeth also serves as a court appointed parenting facilitator and coordinator for Harris and surrounding counties, helping parents in high conflict situations navigate co-parenting. When not overseeing or engaging in direct client care, Elizabeth provides consultation for organizations wishing to incorporate counseling services into their offerings, and to therapists venturing into private practice. Lastly, Elizabeth continues to enjoy providing counseling services to adolescents and adults struggling with identity, self esteem, relationships, parenting, and adjustment to major life changes.
Associations
- American Counseling Association
- American Psychological Association
- Association of Family and Conciliation Courts
Aaron Bunker, MA, LPC
After obtaining his masters degree in counseling, Aaron completed a post-masters internship at a large, non-profit counseling center. There, he served on the Family Team, a group of clinicians committed to collaborating to help family members strengthen relationships. He quickly learned that he was most talented in and passionate about working with couples. Desiring to be the best couples therapist he could be, he completed additional training in working with both married and dating couples. He is certified to provide couples assessments in the Prepare Enrich program, which helps partners identify their relationship strengths and weaknesses. Aaron also completed Gottman method training. John Gottman is the premier researcher on marital success, satisfaction, and therapy.
As Aaron began to focus his time in the therapy room with couples, he learned that a large percentage of these people struggled with sexual issues. Continuing with his theme of offering the best to every client, he embarked on a course of rigorous post-graduate education to become a certified sex therapist. Not only is he uniquely prepared to help couples improve their physical intimacy, he works with individuals with struggles related to their sexuality, their sexual past, or their sexual functioning.
All of Aaron's training and education has carried with it thoughtful integration of current mental health treatment and Christian faith. Although he is well able to provide services to people of all religious backgrounds, he has unique insight and sensitivity to lend to Christians as they wrestle with their relationships and their sexuality. He poured many of his insights and much of his training into a powerful book about marriage, "A Stronger Knot."
Associations:
- American Counseling Association
- Texas Counseling Association
- American Association of Christian Counselors
Anousha Lakhani, LPC-I, LMFT-A
With a masters in counseling and bachelors in psychology, dual licensure in family therapy and counseling, Gottman level one and two certification, and extensive clinical training from the esteemed Houston Galveston Institute, Anousha has an overflowing tool box for working with adolescent and adult clients.
Anousha specializes in relationship dynamics and sexual issues, and she creates a welcoming and supportive environment for all couples, both traditional and non traditional. Utilizing humor to put clients at ease when discussing personal matters, she employs creativity and spontaneity in sessions to create an encouraging, judgement-free atmosphere.
In addition to working with couples, Anousha provides counseling for individual adolescents and adults who have endured trauma and loss, who experience anxiety and depression, and who wrestle with sexual identity and confidence issues. Anousha believes it is vital to understand and appreciate each client’s unique culture and value system and help them integrate these into their identity and life story.
Jarmila "Jari" Hennalova, LPC-Intern
supervised by
Alice Payne, M.A., LPC-S, RPT-S
Jari's training, research, and experience is focused on the important and unique needs of our youngest and most vulnerable clients - children. She believes in the importance of preventive mental health care, knowing that giving children the means and the space to express their feelings can provide them a lifetime of better coping skills and healthier relationships. Jari's conceptualization of children's struggles is holistic, and grounded in attachment theory. She knows that children's relationships with their important adults shape who they become as they move through life, and so she includes parents in the work she does, helping them to learn new ways of communicating with and supporting their children.
Jari engages all children warmly and skillfully through play therapy. Play therapy honors the language of children - play - and gives them a voice when they might not otherwise be able to express difficult emotions. It also serves as a vehicle to teach children new ways to resolve their problems and to relate to and understand the people around them.
Jari has special interest and experience in working with children who struggle with anger or anxiety, and those who have experienced trauma and loss. She has conducted research in the role of attachment, coping and acculturative stress in the presence of psychological symptoms of acculturative stress in immigrant students, and has worked with these students on adapting to new school environments. Her background in education also includes work with children with special needs.
Associations:
- American Counseling Association
- Chi Sigma Iota
Lola Jones, LPC
With a masters degree from Sam Houston State University in Clinical Mental Health and a bachelors in teaching and directing an athletics program, Lola is poised to offer evidenced based treatment to children, adolescents, and adults. Lola is particularly mindful of the ways body and mind are connected, and works with clients to recognize how their physical health can impact their emotional well being, and their emotional state affects their health.
Having worked in a residential youth care facility, Lola is well acquainted with the long road to recovery that children and young adults face when they have endured devastating losses or have been abused. She helps youth reimagine obstacles as stepping stones and challenges as potential victories. She’s well able to use these skills with all ages, and draws from her experiences as a college student outreach coordinator in her early career when working with young adults.
Lola recognizes how different cultures perceive mental health, and as a greater goal, works to help the community understand that mental health is important to people of all ethnicities, sexual orientations, religions, and other backgrounds. In her application to work at HFC, she impressed us most with the statement, “I strive to educate and create safe spaces for all people to have a voice, express their realities, and recognize the power of understanding themselves.” We are proud to have her on our team.
Lizz Calderon, MA, LPC
Lizz works with children, teens and adults from a perspective that acknowledges the tremendous impact family has on people's emotional and relationship patterns. Her experience at a large church counseling center has prepared her to appreciate all the moving parts of a family. She has specialized training in Theraplay, a way of working with children in ways they relate to the important adults in their lives. Lizz is also well versed in helping divorced families as they seek to establish and maintain healthy relationships with their children and co-parents.
Lizz especially enjoys providing therapy for adolescents and young adults, helping them overcome relationship struggles, anxiety, grief, loss, and depression. She engages easily with teens, creating a safe and relaxed atmosphere in which they feel comfortable sharing their struggles, and are encouraged to make changes that lead to healthier living.
Associations:
- American Counseling Association
Tammie Johnson, MA, LPC
When Tammie walks into the counseling office, she brings with her 20 years of experience working with clients who are hurting or in crisis. Her presence in the therapy room is calming and grounding, immediately bringing clients a sense of safety and ease. Her time as a behavior interventionist, and then as an instructional specialist for special education teachers has uniquely prepared her for the counseling career she is so passionate about. She brings a wealth of experience and wisdom to parents and teachers especially, and can help them manage their adult struggles and engage children quickly, getting to the heart of what drives their behaviors, whether that is fear, trauma, family conflicts, or diagnosed or undiagnosed emotional difficulties.
Tammie holds a bachelors degree in Special Education and a masters in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. She has augmented her substantial education with certification in Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), and training in Emotionally Focused therapy allowing her to provide up -to -the -minute interventions for those who have experienced or witnessed a trauma.
Associations:
- American Counseling Association
- Chi Sigma Iota International Counseling Honor Society
Elise Nelius, MA, LPC-Intern
supervised by
Greg Curnutte, MAMFC, LPC-S
Elise’s counseling practice is focused on working with adolescents and young adults. She knows from her research in college and graduate school student experiences that these stages of life are foundational. Decisions made and relationships built during these years set the tone for healthy or unhealthy adult choices. Elise has seen how easily negative patterns can play out in her work in an inpatient behavioral health organization, and at a women’s counseling center. She also has had the privilege of working with young people at Houston’s First Baptist Church’s counseling center and seeing them make lasting changes. Elise education and training in the integration of faith and psychology has given her special insight into helping people of all ages understand how their spirituality is inextricably intertwined with their emotional well-being. 
Associations:
- Psi Chi- the honor society for psychology
Jana McLain, Ph.D., LPC-S
Houston Family Counseling is so fortunate to have an expert like Dr. McLain in our practice. Not only does she have over a decade of experience as a counselor in elementary and secondary schools, she has worked in private practice, served as a professor of counseling, and as a clinical supervisor and advisor for both school and mental health counselors.
Dr. McLain specializes in working with school aged children and adolescents whose behavioral or emotional difficulties are significantly interfering with their development and success. Some of her clients are unable to attend school in a traditional setting, or are not benefiting from their educational experiences because of their disruptive behavior or emotions. Many of her clients struggle with parent relationships and/or connections with siblings and peers.
Using evidence based practices, Dr. McLain engages children, teens, and parents by setting achievable counseling goals and forging a supportive therapeutic relationship with each client. She practices from a humanistic perspective, seeing each individual as a whole person, full of both struggles and strengths. She works to uncover and capitalize on these sometimes hidden advantages, capture motivations, and build on successes.
Associations:
- Texas Counseling Association
- American School Counselor Association
- Texas School Counselor Association
Tiffany Simon, Ph.D, MA, LPC
Alexis Croffie, Ph.D., LPC
Alexis' relentless pursuit of the best counseling techniques to serve his clients makes him a perfect fit for the team at Houston's Family Counseling. After he completed a master's in mental health counseling, he took his thoughtfully cultivated clinical skill set a step further, and went on to obtain a PhD in counselor education from Texas Tech University. Alexis realized that many clients are misunderstood because of their culture, their religion, their age, or their sexual orientation, and so he focused his research and his experience on learning to understand those who often feel alone. Not surprisingly, he found another often misunderstood population drawn to him and he to them - teenagers!
Alexis' clinical experience is broad, as he has worked both in inpatient settings, and in counseling centers serving families over the last five years. He approaches individuals, couples, and families from a Gestalt perspective, helping them see more clearly what is happening in their lives, rather than interpreting experiences based on their historical patterns or events. This kind of work is especially beneficial for those who are entering a new chapter in their life - a change in culture, relationship, school, career, or family.
Associations:
- Texas Counseling Association
- Texas Association for Counselor Educators and Supervisors
- International Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (journal editor)
