John R Fishbein, PhD

In my opinion, most people should see a personal coach whether they need to or not. It’s part of a healthy, balanced approach to life. No one has all of the answers. At least that’s my thinking. Dr. Fishbein is as good as they come — professional, understanding, listens, inviting, cordial, and most of all — incredibly effective! He has a wealth of experience after so many years of seeing such a variety of people, I’m sure he’s come across whatever it is that you want to talk to him about. I can’t say enough good things about Dr. Fishbein. He most definitely will be able to help you through some of life’s challenges, whether business or personal. I recommend him with the highest enthusiasm and without reservation!

Dr. Fishbein is an excellent therapist. He has the ability to effect great change in a short period of time. I am a therapist myself and he is who I send family members to when they need help.

His book is good but don’t waste money on seeing him in person or talking to him over the phone. His counseling was male centric and my guess is that he dispenses legal advice as a macabre bonus with counseling because he had to go through his own divorce. Our experience was a lot like reviewer Mama G. Most therapists will suggest divorce because the divorce rate is over 60% in California. There is no way of getting around it. Ladies save yourself heartache and money. Also, he sits about a mile away from people that go to office visits, as a person who has experience in psychology his locating himself far away from people in his own office tells me that he might also suffer from an issue himself on being close to people. Hence, his suggestion that phone or email counseling is good for you, when in fact he does it to help himself.

I have seen Dr. Fishbein for about 6 months and can’t say enough good things about him. He is amazing at cutting through the BS and getting very quickly to the root of what you are thinking and how you are making decisions. He is able to pull inner-​thoughts out of your brain, set them on the table so they can be looked at objectively and dealt with in a clear, logical way instead of having them jumbled up in your head and confusing them with other emotions.
If you want to become a better person, or deal with situations in a more adult way, then I suggest seeing Dr. F. He really helped me get through a very difficult time in my life.

My husband and I saw John for Marriage Counseling a few years back. I come from a long line of therapists although I myself am not in the business. I am giving John only 1 star for several reasons:
1) John used Cognitive Behavioral Therapy immediately upon entering into counseling with him. My husband and I had several very large issues that I believe we needed to address and we needed to understand what drove our behaviors before we could begin to change them. Cog Behavior Therapy does not allow for reviewing any of your past and as a consequence, you can not understand what drives those behaviors.
2) I was also very chronically sick at the time we were seeing John. I was disappointed into see that John completely discounted my illness as trivial and hardly addressed the issues at all. I felt this was in pore taste and he offered no support.
3) During my first phone interview with John, I was very clear in asking him if he supported couples in «maintaining» and working on their marriage and that in my experience, most marriage counselors seemed to lead you to divorce rather than working on the marriage. I made it clear that I was looking for someone who supported couples in working to stay together in their marriage.
Now, I want to preface that my husband and I now have a good co-​parenting relationship and that we are not your typical bitter divorcees. I am grateful for that. But my belief is that John contributed to and did help lead us to divorce rather than working on the marriage. He made suggestions to my husband on legal issues and my husband decided to file for divorce based on the suggestions. I feel that what he did was unethical, that he did not support both parties and instead suggested filing as a «Trump Card» of sorts. Very unprofessional.
Again, my husband and I now have what I consider to be a decent Co-​Parenting relationship. I am so thankful that we were able to establish what I like to call «A different Sort of Family» but a strong family none the less. We did this on our own and no thanks to John.
If you want to maintain your marriage, DO NOT SEE JOHN FISHBEIN.
As a side note: John practiced therapy over the phone with out of state clients. From conversations with family members who have been in the business for many, many years, this is not legal and in my opinion was bordering on cheesy.
For all families looking for help, I wish you luck on your journey and I wish happiness and health to you all.