Dr. Val-Essen developed the Basic Quality Parenting program to help parents create a family environment based on mutual respect. She has trained instructors—psychotherapists, social workers, and parent educators—to teach her program in the United States and Europe. The material has been translated into Spanish, Dutch, and Swedish.

Based on this program, Dr. Val-Essen created a class for divorced or separated parents entitled “What About the Children?” At University of California Los Angeles, Education Extension, she tailored the program for teachers, which gave birth to Quality Parenting/Quality Teaching: Encouraging Mutual Respect.

Her award-winning book, Bring Out the Best in Your Child and Your Self: Creating a Family Based on Mutual Respect, grew out of these programs.

Parenting with Wisdom and Compassion: Bring Out the Best in Your Family expands the ideas in the Advanced Quality Parenting program and completes Dr. Val-Essen’s comprehensive work. In this new release, parents are invited to enter a new paradigm of parenting that can dramatically improve the way we relate to our children. As doors open that were previously closed, we become free to parent with a wiser and more compassionate heart—even during extraordinary stress when buttons are pushed and fears takes center stage.

Ilene Val-Essen has served on the Board of Directors for Psychosynthesis International and on the steering committee for the American Association for the Advancement of Psychosynthesis, where she is a life-time member. Dr. Val-Essen is also a long-standing member of the California Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.

Dr. Val-Essen is a popular speaker at national and international conferences, has been quoted in numerous blogs and publications including Parents magazine, and has been a featured radio guest. She is known for her passion, warmth, clarity, and practical wisdom.

As a Marriage and Family Therapist in Culver City, CA, Dr. Val-Essen works with families, couples, and individuals of all ages. She believes that people yearn to live a meaningful life and creates a safe environment to facilitate the process of growth.