The Couples and Family Services team is made of licensed clinicians and trainees who focus on treating relationship difficulties with a spouse, partner, family member, or other loved one.
These services are evidenced-based and time-limited: our goal is to help you develop the necessary knowledge and tools to independently maintain happiness in your close relationships.
Couples and Family Services Program Coordinator:
Benjamin Loew, Ph.D., ABPP
Couple and Family Psychology
Couples and Family Services Program Manager
Program Coordinator
Phone: 702-754-4639
To speak with a VA provider about violence in an intimate relationship, call:
Phone: 702-290-3601
Couples and Family Services clinic are offered at the following 3 VA clinics in the Las Vegas valley:
Traditional Therapies
Couples Therapy
- Helps a couple develop a shared understanding of stuck points in the relationship, and tools for effective communication, emotional connection, and acceptance of key differences in the relationship.
- Class is typically 10-20 1-hour sessions.
Family Therapy
- Similar goals/approach as the couples therapy model described above.
- Open to Veterans and loved ones (parents, siblings, adolescent children, other relatives, friends)
- Often completed in less than 10 sessions
Classes
- Couples Communication Skills
- Focuses on tools for communicating safely and constructively, and maintaining positive connections
- 7 weekly 1-hour sessions
- Souses/partners welcomed
- Offering quarterly, Mondays at noon, using VA Video Connect
Parenting Skills
- Focuses on tools to foster positive child behavior and positive parent-child relationships
- 6 weekly, 1 hour sessions
- Adult co-parent are welcomed
- Offering quarterly, Mondays at noon, using VA Video Connect
PTSD 101
- A 2-hour class on PTSD symptoms, treatments, support, and communication strategies.
- Open to the loved ones of those with PTSD
- Offered quarterly, at 10:00 a.m. on a Friday morning, using VA Video Connect.
Other Therapy Services
Systems Therapy for PTSD
- Helps a couple or family understand PTSD and its relationship impacts, improve communication, change negative beliefs about PTSD and relationships, and increase activities and closeness to reduce avoidance
- Open to Veterans and an adult loved one when one or both have significant PTSD symptoms
- Not appropriate for couples strongly considering separation or divorce, or for individuals currently engaged in individual therapy for PTSD
- Approximately 20 sessions
Systems Therapy with serious Psychiatric Illness
- Helps a couple or family understand a Veteran’s diagnosis, treatment, and symptom management strategies, and to improve communication and problem-solving skills
- Open to Veterans with diagnosis such as bipolar disorder or severe depression, and an adult loved one
To request services a VA Behavioral Health provider must place a couples/Family Services referral. Ask a VA provider for a Behavioral Health referral if one does not already exist.
There are apps and online resources available for more information:
Veteran Training parenting class
https://www.veterantraining.va.gov/parenting
Veteran Parenting Toolkits (booklets):
https://Ouhsc.edu/VetParenting
PTSD Family Support course:
https://ptsd.va.gov/apps/CRAFTPTSD
National Center for PTSD family page:
https://ptsd.va.gov/family
Outside Services
The Las Vegas Vet Center
Phone: 702-791-9170
Henderson Vet Center
Phone: 702-791-9100
Vet Centers also offer couples and family services.
Coaching Into Care
Phone: 702-791-9100
A confidential VA telephone service that provides education and support to Veterans’ loved ones. Services include guidance on motivating a Veteran to seek assistance for readjusting to civilian life.