Serving Santa Cruz · telehealth across California
Therapy for Santa Cruz, by secure video
I am Laurie, LMFT, licensed in California. I have lived and practiced in this area for decades, and I work with people by secure video wherever they are in the state. If you are in Santa Cruz, that means you get a therapist who already knows the town — without driving across it.
Telehealth only, by secure video or audio, for people physically located in California. Laurie, LMFT.
A town where the beauty and the cost live in the same sentence
Santa Cruz asks something particular of the people who stay. It is the county seat, a university town, a beach town and a commuter town all at once, and those four things do not always agree. You can be standing somewhere genuinely beautiful and doing arithmetic in your head about rent. People here rarely say that out loud, because the reply is usually some version of look where you live.
Much of what I hear from Santa Cruz clients starts there: a life that looks enviable from outside and feels precarious from inside. A long day that begins in the dark on Highway 17 and ends in traffic on Ocean Street. Two incomes that still do not cover a house. A family who cannot understand why you do not just move somewhere cheaper, when this is where your people, your work and your history are.
Then there are the layers underneath. Fire seasons that reset everyone's nervous system and left some households packing a car more than once. Storm winters, road closures, power outages. A town that keeps changing shape, so that long-time residents grieve a version of Santa Cruz that is no longer here — which is a real loss, even though nobody sends a card for it.
None of that is what I would call a diagnosis. It is context, and it matters, because therapy that ignores where you actually live ends up asking you to fix yourself in a vacuum.
You do not have to explain the housing math to me. I have watched it happen here for years.
Who I tend to see from Santa Cruz
Over-the-hill commuters
You give the road two or three hours a day and arrive home with nothing left for anyone. We look at what that is costing and what can realistically change, including the hour we meet.
UCSC students and staff
Adult students, lecturers, researchers and campus staff. Deadline anxiety, imposter patterns, grief that surfaces mid-quarter, and the fatigue of an academic calendar.
People quietly priced out
You moved here for the life and now the life is expensive. Shame about money is common and rarely spoken. It is welcome here without a lecture attached.
Long-time residents
You remember other versions of this town. Watching a place change is a form of grief, and grief is the center of my practice.
Households that have evacuated
Fire seasons leave a body braced. We work with what stayed switched on afterward, at a pace you set.
Seasonal and hospitality workers
Summer at full tilt, winter with a thin schedule. That rhythm shapes mood and money both, and it is worth naming.
How working together actually goes
We start with a free 20-minute consult by phone, text or video. You tell me what is happening; I tell you honestly whether I am a good fit. There is no obligation after that call, and I will say so if I think someone else suits you better.
If we continue, sessions are usually weekly to begin with, by secure video. My primary areas are grief and loss, emotional and mental patterns that will not shift, and trauma, PTSD and complex trauma; I also work with anxiety. I am EMDR certified and a certified hypnotherapist, and I draw on Internal Family Systems and somatic work depending on what fits you.
There are things I do not treat, and it is better to know now: I do not work with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, and I would refer you to a clinician whose practice is built for that. I am out of network and provide superbills for reimbursement; rates are on the fees page.
Everything is remote. I have no office in Santa Cruz and no drop-in hours anywhere. You do not need to be at home either — a parked car in a quiet lot has served plenty of people well.
- Grief and loss, including losses no one names
- Patterns that repeat no matter what you try
- Trauma, PTSD and complex trauma
- Anxiety, including the racing-mind kind
- Adults, seniors, couples and families
- Telehealth only, by secure video or audio, for people physically located in California. Laurie, LMFT.
Questions from Santa Cruz
- Do I need to come to an office?
- No. There is no office to come to. My practice is telehealth only: every session happens by secure video, and you can be anywhere in California when we meet. Santa Cruz clients usually join from home, and plenty join from a parked car outside work, a spare room, or a friend's place while the house is full. All I need is that you are located in California and somewhere you can speak freely.
- I'd rather not run into my therapist at the farmers' market
- That is a fair thing to want, and in a town this size it is a real consideration. Video removes the waiting room, the parking lot on a main street, and the small chance of an awkward hello by the strawberries on a Saturday. Nobody sees you arrive anywhere. For people who work in local schools, restaurants, health care or the university — where the professional world overlaps constantly — that separation tends to matter more than they expect.
- Do you work with UCSC students?
- Yes, with adult students, and with staff, lecturers and researchers as well. Campus counseling is often session-limited and stretched thin, so people come to me for something steadier: work on grief, on old patterns that resurface under pressure, on trauma history, or on anxiety that shows up around deadlines and performance. If you are a student whose insurance is out of state or whose plan does not cover me, I am out of network and provide superbills; the details are on the fees page so you can decide before we ever talk.
- What do I need for a video session?
- A phone, tablet or laptop with a camera, an internet connection that is good enough for a video call, headphones if other people are home, and a spot where you can be reasonably private for the hour. That is all. I send the link, you tap it, and we begin. If your connection drops we finish by phone rather than losing the session.
If Santa Cruz is where you are, this can start from there
Book a free consult, or send a text. Sessions are by secure video for people located anywhere in California — no office visit, no commute over the hill.