Arlene Harder, MA, MFT

Founder and Editor-in-Chief

More factors have contributed to the reasons I've created Support4Change than you are likely interested in knowing, but here are a few to give you a flavor of who I am.

First, I will point out that as a licensed psychotherapist for more than twenty years I developed a strong interest in several areas.

My first specialty is in using healing imagery and reflective meditation techniques, which began years ago with a study of Psychosynthesis. Applying this holistic school of psychology to my own life and learning from my clients, I have concluded that these techniques reinforce the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual qualities that arise from deep within each one of us. When I later became certified by the Academy for Guided Imagery, I created a series of imagery tapes on such topics as resolving stressful relationships, forgiveness, letting go of the past and dealing with life-challenging and chronic illness.

It was from my work in this last area that I co-founded The Wellness Community–Foothills in Pasadena, California, in 1989. This is part of a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to help people with cancer and their loved ones enhance their health and well being by providing a professional program of emotional support, education and hope. There I gave many workshops and developed a series of imagery classes that have led to several websites.

The first was CancerOnline, a nonprofit website I co-founded in 1997 with a cancer survivor, Craig Miles, and for which I worked pro-bono as full-time executive director for five years. Wanting to turn my attention to writing for a larger audience, I closed that site and created Learning Place Online. This had twelve sections, a bit too broad, and I eventually decided to focus on only seven of them, thus creating Support4Change and the Childhood Affirmations Program.

My third interest is in working with parents of grown children and have written a book, Letting Go of Our Adult Children: When What We Do Is Never Enough, based on work with my clients and on my own experience, that is out of print but can be read online.

My second book, Ask Yourself Questions and Change Your Life, came out in 2008. It didn't get the publicity it should have gotten because I was busy creating a new program, Better Tomorrows, for healing strained and broken relationships. Now I plan to launch it again early in 2010 and if you sign up for the newsletter you can learn all about the virtual launch, though you can purchase it before then based on its first launch.

In addition to this, I am beginning a partnership with a woman in Texas, Jane Toler, PhD, to create a training program for therapists who want to work with parents of estranged children. At the same time, I'm working on a book with Lisbeth Giglio, MS, for parents of younger children. Both ventures are exciting and I look forward to helping heal the world one relationship at a time — and having partners with whom I can share the project.

In all my work, which includes a stint as adjunct professor at Pepperdine University teaching family systems therapy, I have believed that even when people have had an unfortunate childhood and live in less than optimal conditions, in every person there is love. In every person there is healing power. In every person there are sources for both serenity and vitality. In every person there is potential for beauty, wisdom and success.

The trouble is that we often don't know how to find those qualities within, and we often don't see them in others because they can be well hidden. Most of all, we become so busy that we don't even look for them. Instead, we get distracted by, and complain about, problems in our work, in our relationships, and in the wider community. That is, we are too busy to realize these qualities can help us solve the very problems that keep us from living fully until we are jolted awake by the diagnosis of a serious illness, such as cancer, or have the rug pulled out from under us by a tragedy like Katrina or September 11.

Oh, and in case you're interested in some personal facts, I will tell you that I've been happily married for nearly fifty years, have had two sons and two daughters, two sons-in-law and two daughters-in-law, nine grandsons and three granddaughters. I enjoy all of them and all of my life very much!

If you have questions or comments you would like to send me, please use the contact us form. You can also reach me at:

Support4Change

2522 Boulder Road

Altadena, CA 91001

626-797-8914