Carly Ketchum, MA, MA, LMFT

Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist & Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University

Carly is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology, and founder of Marriage Made Better™ Relationship Counseling. Passionate about helping people have happy marriages, Carly has dedicated her career to studying relationships and helping people develop and maintain satisfying relationships as well as overcome considerable relationship obstacles. With enthusiasm, warmth, and a great sense of humor, Carly distills scientific findings into straightforward, practical suggestions as she guides couples and individuals through the process of developing stronger, more fulfilling relationships.

Carly has extensive experience helping people heal from past traumatic relationship experiences. Often these traumatic experiences cause enduring emotional wounds that infiltrate subsequent relationships and cause dysfunctional patterns and significant barriers to experiencing loving connections with others. Through her work as a therapist at the non-profit domestic violence organization Laura’s House Counseling and Resource Center, Carly has helped countless former victims of domestic violence work through the painful and often frightening process of entering new relationships in which they take the risk to love and trust again. Seeing a need for intervention specifically aimed toward challenges in former victims' future relationships, Carly created and launched a group therapy program called ‘Dating After Abuse’ designed to help former victims not only heal and process past trauma, but also increase self-esteem and develop and practice the relationship skills that enable them to courageously and confidently move forward to enjoy healthy, happy romantic relationships free of violence.

Carly is also a dynamic and engaging public speaker who has provided information and inspiration to a wide variety of audiences regarding the complex dynamics of romantic relationships. Approachable and refreshingly real, Carly brings concepts alive by sharing pertinent examples from both her clinical work as a therapist as well as her personal life. She has given multiple presentations on how to have satisfying relationships, how to identify and repair common dysfunctional patterns of communicating in relationships and how to effectively have difficult conversations and resolve conflict in healthy ways. She has also given presentations about how to build and maintain self-esteem and how self-esteem affects dating behavior in teens as well as adults. Carly has been a regularly invited presenter at Domestic Violence Advocate trainings, has been featured in an interview on Orange County radio station KNOC regarding the effects of domestic violence on teenagers and recorded a domestic violence public service announcement that aired on Los Angeles radio station KFWB News Talk 980. She has also been an invited guest lecturer in classes at University of Southern California Master of Social Work Program as well as University of California–Irvine Master of Science in Nursing Program regarding understanding and effectively treating victims of domestic violence. Click here to learn more about Carly's speaking and events.

Carly is a Licensed Clinical Member of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT). Carly holds two masters’ degrees from Pepperdine University, MA in Psychology and MA in Clinical Psychology with an Emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy and has a bachelor’s degree from University of Southern California. Carly and her husband Russ live in San Clemente, CA with their their two young kids, Beverly and Remington, and their little Yorkshire Terrier, Spencer. When she’s not counseling or teaching, Carly enjoys playing the piano, reading, going to see musicals, doing pilates, and getting together for good meals with family and friends.