Psychotherapy
We provide virtual and in-person therapy for children, teens, adults, couples, and families in California.
Click to learn more about our specific offerings:
Couples/relationship therapy »
Family therapy »
Individual therapy for adults
Much of the therapy world continues to operate from frameworks born out of colonialism and White supremacy, treating self-sufficiency as the gold standard of mental health.
At Casa Alma, we start from a different premise: that people heal in relationship, not in isolation. Our work focuses on helping people build and sustain the connections that make life feel meaningful.
We specialize in working with the following mental health concerns and populations:
Click the + to read more about each speciality. To learn more about our therapists’ personal specialities and to find a therapist who gets you, check out the Meet Your Therapist page.
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You're exhausted. Not just tired, but the kind of worn down that sleep doesn't fix. Maybe you've been pushing through for so long that you've forgotten what it feels like to not be anxious, or flat, or both at once. Depression and anxiety rarely look the way they do in textbooks. They show up as irritability, overcommitment, numbness, or a persistent sense that something is wrong even when everything looks fine on paper.
At Casa Alma, we don't just treat symptoms. We work to understand what's underneath them. That might mean exploring the relationships and experiences that shaped how you move through the world, or finding language for feelings that have never quite had words.
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If you're ADHD, autistic, or both, you've probably spent a lot of your life feeling like you were failing at things that seem to come easily to everyone else, or masking so well that no one around you even knows how hard you're working. That kind of chronic effort takes a toll.
Therapy at Casa Alma isn't about helping you fit a mold that was never made for you. We work with neurodivergent adults to better understand how their minds actually work, process the emotional weight of navigating a world not designed for them, and build lives that feel sustainable and genuinely their own.
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Do you find yourself in the middle of the same painful dynamic, with different people, over and over again? Do you wonder why connection feels so hard, or why it swings between overwhelming closeness and total shutdown? Relationship struggles rarely start with the person in front of you. They usually start much earlier.
We learn relational patterns early in life to keep ourselves safe. But those same patterns don't always serve us as adults. At Casa Alma, we help individuals understand where their relational patterns come from so they can start building the kinds of connections they actually want.
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Finding a therapist you share common ground with can make a real difference, especially when you're already doing the hard work of navigating a world that doesn't always make space for you. At Casa Alma, we offer affirming, culturally responsive therapy for members of the LGBTQIAA+ community. You don't need to explain yourself here. You're welcome as you are.
We work with clients on coming out, romantic and family relationships, gender identity exploration, gender affirmation and transition, navigating systemic oppression, queer family building, living with HIV/AIDS, substance use, and topics including ethical non-monogamy, polyamory, and kink/BDSM communities and practices, among others.
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Therapy has historically not been a space built for or by people of color, and many people carry understandable skepticism about whether it can actually help. At Casa Alma, we take that history seriously. We offer culturally responsive care that doesn't ask you to leave your identity, your community, or your experience of systemic racism at the door.
Whether you're navigating racial trauma, intergenerational patterns, the weight of code-switching, family and cultural expectations, or something else entirely, you deserve a space where all of that is part of the conversation, not an afterthought.
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Trauma can be hard to name, especially when it doesn't look like what you'd see in a movie. It might show up as a body that's always braced, relationships that never feel fully safe, or a persistent sense that you're watching your life from a slight distance. You might not even identify what you've been through as "trauma,” but you know something is getting in the way.
At Casa Alma, we work with clients to understand how past experiences live in the present — in relationships, in the body, in patterns of thinking and feeling. Healing isn't about revisiting pain for its own sake. It's about building enough safety and understanding that the past stops running the show.
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If you grew up in an environment that was unsafe, unpredictable, or simply not enough, you may have spent years adapting in ways that made sense then, but are costing you now. Many people who experienced abuse or neglect in childhood don't fully connect those experiences to what's showing up in their adult lives—whether in relationships, self-worth, chronic pain, or a persistent feeling of being not quite okay.
At Casa Alma, we help you draw those connections and do something with them, helping you understand the patterns you developed to cope, grieve what you deserved and didn't get, and build a different relationship with yourself and others.
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IPV can be hard to name, especially when the relationship has also held real love, or when leaving feels more complicated than staying. Abuse isn't always physical, and it rarely fits the simple narrative. Coercive control, emotional abuse, financial abuse, and cycles of tension and repair can leave you doubting your own perception of what's happening.
At Casa Alma, we offer a space where you can make sense of your experience without pressure or judgment. Whether you're in the relationship, considering leaving, or processing it after the fact, we meet you where you are and support you in rebuilding clarity, safety, and trust in yourself.
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What happened to you was not your fault. And yet, in the aftermath of sexual assault or harassment, it's common to find yourself questioning your own memory, minimizing your experience, or carrying shame that belongs to someone else. Healing is possible, and you don't have to do it alone.
At Casa Alma, we provide a space to process what you've been through without pressure or judgment. We understand the complexity of these experiences, including the ways they affect trust, intimacy, and how you see yourself, and we work in a way that feels grounding rather than retraumatizing.
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Pregnancy and the postpartum period are supposed to be joyful, and sometimes they are. But they're also some of the most emotionally complex and destabilizing experiences a person can go through. Anxiety, depression, grief, identity shifts, relationship strain, and the gap between expectation and reality are all real and common, and they deserve real support.
At Casa Alma, we support people through all phases of the perinatal period, from pregnancy through the early years of parenthood. Whether you're struggling with mood changes, birth trauma, the loss of your pre-baby self, or simply feeling like you should be handling this better than you are, you're in the right place.
Learn more about our support for pregnant and postpartum individuals here.
Therapy for children
Play is the language of childhood—and toys are a child's words. At Casa Alma, we use evidence-based play therapy as the foundation of our work with children, meeting them exactly where they are. We also integrate:
Parent-child relational work
Trauma-informed approaches for children who have experienced adverse events
Art therapy to help children explore and communicate their emotions through creative expression
Child-adapted CBT for specific anxiety presentations or skill-building needs
We work with families of all structures and backgrounds, with deep expertise working with LGBTQIA+ parents as well as children exploring their gender identity.
What is play therapy?
Unlike free play, evidence-based play therapy is an intentional process guided by a trained clinician. Children use toys, art, and storytelling to express what they can't yet say out loud—and a trained play therapist knows how to read that. They track what toys a child chooses, how they use them, and what themes keep coming up over time—developing a deep understanding of what the child is carrying and using that to create the conditions for change.
What can play therapy help with?
Children often show us they're struggling through their behavior — at home, at school, or both. Here's what we commonly see and can help with:
Struggles at home:
Big emotions, meltdowns, or outbursts
Anxiety, worry, or compulsive behaviors
Identity formation, including gender identity or expression
Grief, loss, or major life changes
Family stress or transition (divorce, new sibling, moving)
Trauma or adverse experiences
Self regulation, self-esteem, and daily functioning challenges for neurodivergent children
FAQ
Struggles at school:
Difficulty focusing or completing work
Social challenges or trouble making friends
Conflict with peers or adults
Feeling different, excluded, or misunderstood
Behavioral concerns flagged by teachers
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Parents are an essential part of the process. We check in regularly, share what we're noticing, and give you tools to support your child between sessions—including helping you understand and connect with the way your child communicates through play.
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Progress is typically gradual. Your therapist will share observations from session regularly so you always have a clear picture of how your child is doing.
Research on play therapy consistently shows improvements across several areas. As therapy progresses, you may notice:
Reduced anxiety and fewer emotional outbursts or meltdowns
Improved self-regulation — your child recovering faster when things go wrong
Greater ability to express feelings in words, rather than through behavior
More positive interactions with peers, siblings, and adults
Improved confidence and a stronger sense of self
Better coping when facing stress, change, or disappointment
Therapy for teens
Adolescence is one of the most intense periods of self-discovery — and for many teens, it's also the loneliest. At Casa Alma, we offer evidence-based therapy for teenagers that centers connection first. We tailor our work to what each teen actually needs. We have particular expertise working with teens navigating identity, racial and cultural stress, family dynamics, anxiety, and depression, and we offer affirming care for LGBTQ+ teens and their families.