About Andrea
Dr. Andrea Shirley is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 27 years of experience who helps people facing stress, anxiety, grief, and ADHD-related concerns. She meets people where they are and focuses on practical steps they can use day to day.
Her tone is direct and respectful, aiming to reduce overwhelm and build on what already works in a client's life. She uses a client-centered stance that treats the person as the expert on their story.
Background and approach
That means listening first, then collaborating on goals that feel meaningful and doable. She also draws on narrative work to help people reframe difficult experiences and notice strengths that are easy to miss in the moment. Solution-focused techniques are used to identify small changes that produce real relief quickly.
For clients dealing with trauma and abuse, Trauma-Focused Therapy methods provide a structure for processing painful memories while attending to safety and pacing. Sessions combine practical coping tools with careful attention to emotional experience. Her background includes long-term clinical work in California and a history of supporting people through life transitions, caregiving stress, chronic illness, and relationship strain.
She often helps people who are navigating identity and intimacy questions, including LGBTQ concerns. Dr. Shirley aims to make therapy understandable and useful.
She supports parents and professionals who feel burned out, as well as people coping with anger, sleeplessness, or career stress. Her approach favors clear goals, steady progress, and everyday strategies that fit a busy life.
Approaches that guide online sessions
Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening and building understanding. The therapist treats the client as the expert on their life and supports choices that feel right, which helps with anxiety, stress, and relationship decisions.Narrative Therapy helps people separate themselves from difficult events by re-telling their stories. This approach can shift how a problem is understood and reveal strengths to build on, useful for grief, identity questions, and long-standing patterns.
Finding the right fit is a collaborative process. The therapist will work with each person to decide which approaches suit their goals and comfort level. Together they set short-term goals and test small changes to see what helps most.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation when that matters. Phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited or a shorter check-in is needed. Live chat and texting are useful for brief updates, coaching-style support, or people who prefer writing. These options offer flexibility so therapy can fit work, caregiving, and other daily commitments.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- LGBT
- Relationship issues
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 27 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English
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