Elayne Chou, Ph.D. - California Licensed Psychologist #17287, Private Practice

Associate Faculty, Bowen Center for the Study of the Family: Elayne received her doctorate in Counseling Psychology from The Ohio State University and has been in private psychotherapy and consultation practice since 2004 in Berkeley and Oakland, California. In her practice she works with adolescents, adults, and families with a specialized focus on work with Asian Americans, including Asian adoptees and adoptive families. She is also an executive coach who coaches and consults to leaders of color and to family businesses.  Since 2024, she has been a faculty member of The Bowen Center for the Study of the Family in Washington, DC, where she serves on the journal editorial board for Family Systems journal, and teaches in the center’s learning and development post-graduate programs. Elayne serves on the advisory board for Pact, an adoption alliance organization, and in 2021 created the Birth Parent Foster Parent Partnerships Interactive Learning Module with the Children’s Bureau Learning and Coordination Center of the U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services for use with child welfare program leaders, case workers, and foster parents across the United States. Elayne is the author of a chapter on the Bowen family systems approach in the 3^rd edition of An Introduction to Marriage and Family Therapy textbook. She has a research interest in applying family systems thinking to clinical practice conundrums such as how to be a helper without being overly helpful or functioning better rather than feeling better.