Hailed "Doc Hollywood" by the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Rachel Ballon is a licensed psychotherapist and international writers' consultant who specializes in personal and professional issues experienced by writers, such as fear of rejection, success, or failure, and procrastination. As Founder and Director of the Writer's Center, Dr. Ballon teaches and helps thousands of writers connect with their inner cast of characters and reconnect to their most potent creative resource - themselves. She brings her expertise in these both fields to her seminars, workshops and books. Her innovative Fast Flow Writing Method has enabled clients to write emotionally honest screenplays, novels, plays and non-fiction. Their works have won awards and many have gone on to become successful novelists, screenwriters, and children writers.

As a marriage and family therapist in private practice in Westwood for over thirty years, Dr. Ballon has used writing therapy with her clients and has developed specific techniques to teach mental health professionals how to use therapeutic writing with clients, individually and in group settings. She is also a published poet and poetry therapist who studied with Dr. Arthur Lerner, the founder of the Poetry Therapy Institute in Los Angeles.

Dr. Ballon teaches mental health and health care professionals how to use narrative - such as theme, story structure, transformational arc and resolution - with clients to help them transform their negative personal stories into happy endings. She has conducted workshops at UCLA, UC Irvine and CSUN in "The Use of Writing as an Adjunct in the Counseling Setting," "The Therapeutic Power of Story" and "Fast Flow Writing to Heal" workshops. Other workshops at UCLA in the Human Development department have included: "Be the Hero in Your Career and Life,” “The Use of Writing for Growth and Change," "The Personal Journal: Write Your Story, Right Your Life," "Visibility: Gaining Personal and Professional Recognition," and "Creativity, Imagination and Spirit: Unlocking the Blocks."

A master teacher and noted writing coach, Dr. Ballon has reviewed hundreds of scripts for major Hollywood studios such as Fox Entertainment, Fox Family Channel, UPN and Saban Entertainment. A former Adjunct Professor in scriptwriting at USC School of Cinema and Television, where some of her students and clients have won awards for their scripts, she has taught writing to thousands of writers throughout the United States. She has conducted seminars for UCLA's Writer's Program, the American Film Institute, the Writer's Guild of America, the Director's Guild of America, Women in Film, Women in Theater, Northwestern University, and major writing conferences worldwide.

Dr. Ballon has taught her screenwriting and story development methods to executives, directors, producers and writers at RAI-TV in Rome, Italy, where many scripts were produced in television and feature films. Two of her producers were nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign short film. She also conducted workshops on Creativity and Values in Film in Valencia, Spain. As a member of the Writer's Guild of America, Dr. Ballon is a scriptwriter with produced television credits on ABC-TV, and several of her scripts have been optioned by major studios. She was a writer on an award winning documentary entitled, "Then Their Were None," and is the author of five critically acclaimed books, Blueprint for Writing: A Writer's Guide to Creativity, Craft and Career and The Writer's Sourcebook: From Writing Blocks to Writing Blockbusters, Breathing Life Into Your Characters, Blueprint for Screenwriting: A Writer's Guide to Story Structure and Character Development and The Writers' Portable Therapist: 25 Sessions to a Creativity Cure. Dr. Ballon is a clinical member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists and California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and she conducts "Writing to Heal" workshops throughout Los Angeles.