You can heal from TRAUMA. If you are living with traumatic events from your past, ranging from sexual abuse, incest, rape, humiliation, violence, and attachment wounds, therapy could be a safe space to address these injuries. Through a collaborative approach and taking into account the mind & body, I join my clients on a journey of exploration, growth, and healing. I can assist you in reconnecting with yourself and your body, feel grounded, and helping you manage your life more smoothly.

Through telehealth-, home-, and school-based services, I meet my clients where they are. Usually families come to me because they feel stuck. Their child has difficult emotions, acts out, and cannot seem to listen. Teachers and parents struggle to feel effective and worry about the child’s future. Everything feels complicated and out of control.

Finding the right therapist from a website is difficult, which is why I offer phone or in-person consultations. It takes courage to address challenges such as relationships, personal problems, or general unhappiness. Your success in treatment will depend on your readiness to open up and my authentic presence that will help create a safe space for you. Together we will work on identifying, experiencing and expanding your capacity to tolerate all ranges of feelings. You will become more conscious of your limiting patterns while developing healthy ones as your sense of a genuine and stronger self emerges.

Many of you will experience dramatic and sometimes shocking changes in your or your loved one's health, relationships or careers. I have over 19 years of experience helping people and their families cope with a wide variety of chronic and terminal illness, relationship changes, adjustment, grief and loss. Using your strengths, I will help you work through these difficult changes to help you adjust to their impact on you and your loved ones.

Since 1984, I've provided services for adults and adolescents in both inpatient and outpatient settings. I have varied experience with depression, trauma, abuse, grief/loss, personal growth, relationships, anxiety, and stress. I have also worked extensively with addictions and related issues ("co-dependency", eating disorders, alcoholism, dual diagnosis...).

Do you have an irrational, gut feeling you can't seem to shake? Maybe something telling you that you're not good enough, unsafe, powerless...? Sometimes, difficult experiences in our past can cloud how we live in and see the present. We find ourselves overreacting to things or people, feeling anxious or worthless. Our head can tell us we are being irrational, but that doesn't change the feeling. One of my goals is in helping you re-process the experiences in your life that push these feelings, so you not only know that you're okay - you feel it.

As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, my goal is to help individuals improve their relationships with loved ones, uncover their strengths, and acquire positive coping skills to lead a healthy life. During my 15 years as a Therapist, I have worked with families, couples, and individuals with a wide range of concerns including depression, anxiety, relationship issues, parenting problems. I also helped many people who have experienced trauma such as sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. In addition, I had the opportunity to work with Adult Children of parents with personality disorders, particularly Borderline and Narcissistic.

You may feel broken, different, and struggle to make all the "pieces" fit together. Perhaps that is further complicated because you are a survivor of trauma, or struggling with immense grief, and find it difficult to maintain healthy relationships or feel balanced. We cannot go back in time, but we have this sacred moment, and I want to help you grasp it and make it genuine. I want to help you find choice, autonomy and radical compassion in who you are. If you are partnered, I want to help you develop skills to nourish growth in that partnership.

Thank you for coming to my page. I am a seasoned therapist--easy to talk to, easy to trust. In the business for a long time. So many people have confided in me over the years, things that made them feel bad or sad, things they could not say to anyone else, things that made them feel embarrassed, difficulties that are hard to talk about. Therapy is about getting free from these things, putting them into perspective and perhaps into the past where they belong. It makes so much difference to have an easy going, skilled listener.

We all want to be understood and feel like we are making progress towards our life goals. My approach is comforting, humorous, humble, creative and lovingly direct. Everyone needs connection and in my experience the benefits of connecting and being seen by someone in therapy are many. Are you interested in working on an issue related to a relationship, major life change, depression and/or anxiety? Visit my website www.rachelwardlmft.com or call at 626-327-3456 for a free 25 minute consultation to see if we are a good fit. Making sure we connect is very important.

We all want to feel better from time to time. We get stuck, sad, scared, alone. And right now during these uncertain times, many of us are struggling. Well, there is good news! The field of psychology, through research in neuroscience, has uncovered new powerful and effective ways that really work to build our resilience, improve our lives and relationships, and help us feel more connected and alive. I want to help you experience all of that. You just need to reach out, which is hard. I promise you though, if you take that step, you will feel better.

As a therapist I have witnessed healing and its splendor in the darkest of circumstances and am honored when individuals choose to embark on this journey with me. I know the decision to enter therapy is not always easy. Therapy is not easy. But therapy heals. When you enter therapy you put forth a willingness to acknowledge painful emotions and circumstances and a readiness to explore life events that are often uncomfortable, sometimes even paralyzing. But the insight and meaning you will gain from therapy will lead to transformation, comfort and growth.

I specialize in issues related to Sex and Intimacy. I am LGBTQ+, Kink and Poly Friendly. Sexuality is an important part of the human experience and I offer a safe space to talk about it. I know that fulfilling relationships are possible for everyone; we all have the human need for connection and intimacy, but sometimes as the result of painful experiences, we build walls to keep others at a distance. I can help you tackle these walls and find new ways of relating, achieving a balance of closeness, connection and personal autonomy.

In your psychotherapy with me, I will aim to help you feel understood as we explore the life difficulties you have faced, and currently face. I emphasize empathy in my work, and provide a safe environment in which to help you process your painful experiences and understand how they may be influencing your current struggles. Unprocessed emotional pain is commonly at the core of the symptoms we experience; yet it is often dismissed or suppressed. We will process your feelings and experiences to help make sense out of them and reduce your symptoms.

Depressed & anxious adults who are self-critical and self-shaming and couples who bicker and get entangled easily are the populations I serve. Childhood roots of these patterns are explored, while clients learn to replace criticism and shame with kindness. Clients learn to "sit still" with emotions, rather than avoiding uncomfortable feelings through compulsive, "busy", or destructive behaviors. This process assists clients in reducing depression and anxiety, while increasing self-confidence, assertiveness, creativity, and tolerance for intimacy. Couples learn to communicate feelings and needs without using attacking words, and learn how to dis-entangle from eachother after "buttons" have been pushed.

Feeling "blue", anxious and too stressed? Relationship difficulties? As an experienced, trusted therapist, I am here to help. I can offer you both traditional "inside office" talk therapy and/or a unique "alternative" outdoors therapy- EQUINE ASSISTED PSYCHOTHERAPY. Because horses are so attuned to their environment, they provide extremely accurate feedback or "mirrors" for our human feelings and relational dynamics. Horses facilitate "mindfulness" and help people to QUICKLY learn more about about themselves leading to substantial change and healing. I offer individual, couples, family, group therapy and/or EAP.

I am a licensed clinical psychologist with a doctoral degree from UT Southwestern Medical Center. I completed my Postdoctoral Fellowship at Stanford University, specializing in the treatment of anxiety, mood disorders, and behavioral difficulties with children, young adults and families. I specialize in helping individuals who are struggling with depression, anxiety, phobias, anger management and relationship difficulties, as well as parent consultation for behavioral issues.

I'm a trauma-informed therapist specializing in mood disorders, somatic challenges, and relational distress. Overwhelm is our current cultural standard of functioning. It's hard to slow down, but you are in emotional, and perhaps, physical pain and something needs to shift. Trust yourself in this. Work with me to treat the anxiety, depression, trauma, and strained relationships that have you in painful patterns. Privilege your own wellbeing to grow, change, and clarify how you want to engage life and others. Your ease of being and authenticity are a worthy goal in life. Things can feel better!

Sometimes we find ourselves stuck. We want to enjoy our life! Move ahead, but something keeps holding us back. Perhaps we are being haunted by our past, or are uncertain what to change. Trauma may lead to obstacles that get in the way of forming honest and open connections with others or roadblocks that hinder a life of fullness and meaning. Whether looking to gain insight or understanding to the past or need some extra support attaining goals in the present, I am here to help.