Look for the Helpers, a podcast by Engage Therapy

What if the most loving thing you can do as a parent is hold the line? Local marriage and family therapist Lori Allen, LMFT, owner of Village Wellness in the Conejo Valley, joins Adelina Brisbois, LMFT, on Look for the Helpers for an honest, practical conversation about raising confident, resilient kids. They get into why the kids who feel least loved are often the ones whose parents set the fewes...

On Look for the Helpers, a podcast by Engage Therapy in Agoura Hills, Dr. Blake Brisbois sits down with Deanna Dow, PhD, a clinical psychologist and the founder of Spectrum Psych in Los Angeles. Dr. Dow specializes in autism and ADHD, and she recently came out to the Engage Treatment Program campus in Westlake Village to spend three hours helping our team make our programs more neuro-inclusive. Th...

Title: Connection Before Correction — with Maurissa Szilagi, LCSW, Attachment & Trauma Therapist Summary: Maurissa Szilagi, LCSW, Ed. M, has spent her career helping families heal attachment wounds, and she comes to the work with rare lived experience: she grew up in foster care and was adopted in her late 30s. In this warm conversation with Adelina Brisbois, LMFT, she makes a case that lands...

Title: Why Women's Mental Health Is Different — with Dr. Brittany Booth, Reproductive Psychiatrist Summary: Dr. Brittany Booth is a reproductive psychiatrist in Westlake Village who works at the intersection of hormones and mental health — PMDD, pregnancy and postpartum, menopause — and at UCLA's Maternal Mental Health Program. With Adelina Brisbois, LMFT, she makes a quietly radical case: so much...

Title: Empathy Is a Human Skill — Breaking the Silence on Mental Health, with Harsha Dodani Summary: Harsha Dodani has spent years teaching empathy — first in schools, now in boardrooms as the Chief Heart Officer of EmpathifyU. In one of the first times she's shared her family's story out loud, she and her friend Adelina Brisbois, LMFT get honest about the cultural silence around mental he...

Janet Bayramyan, LCSW — a trauma therapist and owner of Road2Wellness Counseling in Encino — joined our new Mindful Beginnings program as a parent, alongside her one-year-old son. Mindful Beginnings is for parents and their little ones (walking age through 5), built on the Reflective Parenting curriculum and grounded in attachment theory. It's not a typical parenting class. Instead of only tea...

Episode Summary What if your child changed overnight—emotionally, behaviorally, or cognitively? In this episode, pediatrician Dr. Tanya Altmann explains how infections and inflammation can trigger sudden neuropsychiatric symptoms in children, and why early recognition matters. This conversation offers parents and clinicians a grounded, compassionate lens for understanding complex cases where menta...

In this episode of Look for the Helpers , we welcome Dr. Rob Feeley , psychiatrist and Medical Director at Engage Therapy, for a wide-ranging conversation about medication, trauma, and trust in mental health care. Dr. Feeley discusses why psychiatry is about far more than prescriptions, how misconceptions about medication take root, and how he works collaboratively with clients and families who ma...

🎧 Podcast Show Notes Episode Summary In this episode, Engage Therapy host Dr. Blake Brisbois welcome Ajit Dodani for a grounded conversation about empathy—not as a soft skill, but as a learned leadership strategy. Ajit reflects on immigration, trauma, and corporate leadership, sharing how self-awareness and emotional regulation shape healthy families, workplaces, and communities. Key Themes Empat...

In this episode of Look for the Helpers, a podcast by Engage Therapy, Adelina Brisbois, LMFT and Dr. Blake Brisbois sit down with Robert Scholz, LMFT—founder of The Change Place in Westlake Village—to talk about threat assessment, school safety, and how helpers make careful decisions when fear and urgency are in the room. Robert is a speaker, author, national trainer, and former Clinical Director...

In this episode of Look for the Helpers , Adelina Brisbois, LMFT speaks with Andrew Cohen, LMFT, a Westlake Village–based therapist specializing in OCD and anxiety disorders. Andrew is the co-founder of Cohen OCD Therapy , which he runs with his wife, Danielle Cohen, LMFT. Their practice serves children, teens, adults, and families throughout the Conejo Valley using evidence-based approaches, incl...