About Sara
Sara Contreras is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) practicing in California. She brings five years of clinical experience and focuses on helping people manage stress, anxiety, depression, trauma, and ADHD-related concerns. Her style is direct and compassionate, aimed at making therapy understandable and practical for busy parents.
Sara creates a calm space where clients can talk through difficult thoughts and feelings without judgment. She listens closely to what matters most and helps people set small, achievable goals.
Background and approach
Sessions are conversational and focused on real-life changes rather than long explanations. She draws on attachment-based ideas to look at how relationships shape patterns of thinking and feeling. Cognitive behavioral tools help clients notice unhelpful thoughts and try different behaviors.
For those coping with traumatic memories, she uses EMDR as one option among others to reduce the hold of distressing experiences. Sara also supports people dealing with grief, intimacy concerns, sleep problems, parenting stress, and career pressure. She works with people navigating identity and relationship questions, including LGBT topics, and addresses issues like body image and codependency.
Practical strategies and careful listening are central to her work. Her schedule includes some mornings and selected evenings on Monday, Wednesday, and some Thursdays, with other appointment times available by arrangement. New clients start by filling a short matching questionnaire and then scheduling a first session that fits their needs.
Therapeutic approaches adapted for online care
Attachment-Based Therapy focuses on how early bonds shape current relationships and feelings. It helps people recognize patterns that affect connection and trust, and then try new ways of relating to partners and loved ones.Client-Centered Therapy centers conversations on the client's experience. The therapist listens deeply, reflects what is said, and supports people in making choices that match their values and goals.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at the link between thoughts, feelings, and actions. It offers practical exercises to challenge unhelpful thoughts and build routines that reduce anxiety and improve daily functioning.
Choosing the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist will talk with each person about concerns, goals, and preferences, and then recommend or combine methods that seem most helpful. That decision is collaborative and can change as progress is made.
Online sessions use video calls, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to fit different needs. Video is useful for full conversations and visual cues. Phone sessions work well when bandwidth is limited or a shorter check-in is needed. Live chat and texting can be easier for quick updates, brief coaching, or when writing helps someone sort thoughts. These options make it easier to schedule therapy around busy days and varied routines.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Phobias
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 5 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English
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