About Sara
Sara Contreras is a licensed marriage and family therapist practicing in California. She brings five years of clinical work to sessions and focuses on helping people manage stress, anxiety, trauma, depression, and major life changes.
Background and approach
She uses an attachment-based and client-centered approach to build a calm, nonjudgmental space. Sessions are conversational and focused on what matters most to the person sitting across from her.
Practical steps and small experiments between sessions are common to help ideas translate into everyday life. Cognitive behavioral techniques are used when thinking patterns or behaviors are getting in the way.
When trauma is part of the story, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, or EMDR, may be considered to reduce distressful memories and reactions. Existential ideas help people find meaning when they face loss, big choices, or identity questions.
Sara helps with a wide range of concerns beyond the most common ones. These include intimacy and attachment struggles, parenting stress, grief, sleeping problems, chronic pain and illness, body image, codependency, and issues related to kink and alternative sex culture.
She also supports people dealing with burnout, compassion fatigue, and workplace or career stress. Her sessions are intended to be collaborative.
People can expect clear goals, practical tools, and compassionate listening tailored to their needs. Getting started involves choosing a session format and setting a pace that fits each person’s life.
Approaches that guide online work and healing
Sara uses attachment-based therapy to look at how early and current relationships affect feelings of safety and trust. This approach helps people understand patterns in close relationships and build more supported ways of relating.She also uses client-centered therapy that keeps the person’s experience at the center of sessions. That means listening carefully, reflecting what matters, and moving at a pace the person sets. Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, is used to spot unhelpful thinking and change behaviors that keep problems going. CBT is useful for anxiety, depression, and stress management.
Choosing the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist will talk through options, try things out, and adjust methods based on the client’s goals and preferences. Treatment is collaborative with clear goals and periodic check-ins to see what’s helping.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video is helpful when visual cues matter and for a face-to-face feel. Phone sessions can fit a busy day or work better when bandwidth is limited. Chat and messaging allow short check-ins, quick problem-solving, and a way to keep momentum between meetings. These options give flexibility so therapy can fit into daily life.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- 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