Hi! I’m Reesa (she/her)

The Mission

I am not interested in keeping parents in couples counseling for years.

Frankly … we’ll get sick of each other. No one wants that. My dream and mission is to help parents create lasting and thriving relationships with their partner(s) for the sake of their wellbeing and their families. I want the couples that I work with to learn these skills so that they can support and model health and wellbeing to their children and other family members, creating future generations that are well-adjusted and stable so that there is no need for my services. Breaking generational trauma. When that happens, I can finally retire in a little cottage in Italy content on eating my pasta and gelato for the rest of my days. Are you ready to accept the challenge?

In a Nutshell

I’m a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (aka LMFT CA 104709). I have a bachelor's in fine arts in Musical Theatre (surprise!) and a master’s in Marital and Family Therapy from the University of San Diego (Go Toreros). Through all my work, I quickly realized the best preventative care is providing couples therapy to improve the parenting relationship. It is help for parents with relationship issues and therapy for parents feeling distant. Here’s why:

There is loads of research supporting the impact that your relationship satisfaction has on your mental health stability, your job success, and the passing down of behaviors to your children. As parents, when our relationship is rocky, it means we have less joy and happiness, it is easier to slip into a critical, negative mindset, less capacity and energy to take care of your own needs, and it significantly decreases our availability to show up for your children and other loved family members. Cue my passion for supporting parents and providing relationship counseling for parents. Providing couples counseling in Murrieta, CA. Virtual couples therapy for parents in California. Couples workshops and parenting workshops virtually worldwide!

Additional Certifications:

  • Seeking Safety

  • Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

  • Motivational Interviewing

  • Level II Trained Gottman Couples Therapy

  • Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy

  • 7 Principles Gottman Workshop Leader

  • Gottman Bringing Baby Home Educator

How I work:

  • Couples counseling with me is client centered.

    • You and your partner(s) are experts on the inner workings of your relationship, and this is your treatment - not mine.

    • I’m not going to dictate how often, when, or for how long you need to be in treatment. I’m going to collaborate with you to find what fits your needs best.

    • For couples therapy and intensives, I do thorough assessments because I want to understand the relationship first, so I know how best to treat it.

    • I want to collaborate with you on goals for care. I believe that by setting goals, we’ll all know when we’ve completed them and are ready to cut the cord. No shady business here of keeping you on to bleed your bank dry.

    • I love to incorporate humor as a tool to get us unstuck. If you take yourself too seriously for all that, I'm not your therapist.

    • Safety is a big deal to me. After all, I’m a stranger asking you to tell me about the parts of you and your relationship that you may not be most proud of. If I cannot show up for you in that way, I have no business in trying to ask you to get real or take responsibility with me.

Who am I, personally:

  • I’m a 1.5 generation Filipino American.

  • With my partner of 16 years, we are raising 2 human children and 2 Great Danes.

  • I’ve had to grow, heal, learn how to be in a healthy relationship and raise well-adjusted children without a handbook or a model for that growing up with emotionally immature parents and generational trauma.

  • I’ve had to journey through a high medical needs child and the toll that takes on your mental wellbeing and your relationship.

  • I love to cook and travel.

  • I can quote most rom-coms from the 90’s and 00’s.