About Alia
Alia Smith is a licensed marriage and family therapist in California with 15 years of experience. She centers sessions on the person in front of her and helps people make manageable changes.
Background and approach
Her style is straightforward and warm, aimed at reducing overwhelm and building practical skills. She uses talk and simple tools to address anxiety, depression, and stress.
She also helps with addictions, bipolar disorder, and problems that follow trauma and abuse. Parents and busy adults often seek her help when life shifts leave them unsure of what to do next.
Alia draws on several therapy methods to match what each person needs. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy offers clear steps to change thinking and behavior.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy brings skills for emotion regulation and distress tolerance. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps people clarify values and commit to small steps toward them.
Sessions focus on real life - coping with change, improving relationships, and managing symptoms day to day. She works with concerns such as ADHD, self-esteem, body image, codependency, and panic attacks.
Alia also supports people dealing with grief, guilt, and feelings of emptiness. Her approach treats the client as the expert in their own life while offering structure and encouragement.
She helps set doable goals, practice new responses, and track progress between sessions. Taking the first step can feel hard, and she aims to make that step easier to take.
How therapeutic methods translate to online sessions
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, helps people notice unhelpful thoughts and choose actions that match their values. It can be useful for anxiety, depression, avoidance, and life changes. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, focuses on identifying thought and behavior patterns and practicing new ways of responding to reduce symptoms. It works well for panic, low mood, and many stress-related problems. Dialectical Behavior Therapy, DBT, offers practical skills for managing intense emotions and improving coping during crisis moments and ongoing stress.Finding the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will talk with the client about goals, try methods that fit those goals, and adjust as progress is tracked. Clients help decide what feels most useful, and sessions can blend techniques rather than sticking to a single model.
Online therapy formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation and skill practice, while phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited. Live chat and text are useful for quick check-ins, journaling, or shorter focused work between longer sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into busy schedules and to continue care when travel or other commitments get in the way.
Frequently asked questions
What kinds of problems does this therapist help with?
What is the therapist's general approach in sessions?
How much clinical experience does the therapist have?
What are the therapist's credentials and location?
Are sessions available in other languages or internationally?
In what formats are sessions offered?
How is cost handled for sessions?
What should I do to get started with therapy?
Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Bipolar disorder
- Body image
- Codependency
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Emptiness
- Family problems
- Guilt and shame
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Personality disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Relationship issues
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Stress, Anxiety
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 15 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English