Serving Scotts Valley · telehealth across California
Therapy for Scotts Valley, by secure video
My longest-running practice presence was here, and I have worked with this community for years. I am Laurie, LMFT, licensed in California, and I now see people entirely by secure video — so a session fits into a Scotts Valley week without adding a single mile to it.
Telehealth only, by secure video or audio, for people physically located in California. Laurie, LMFT.
The drive, and what it takes out of the week
Scotts Valley runs on Highway 17. Some households have one person heading over the hill to San Jose or further into the valley, some have two, and a few have a schedule so staggered that the family only really overlaps on weekends. Whatever the arrangement, the road takes a share of every day that nobody accounts for out loud.
What I hear most often is not drama. It is depletion. You are not in crisis; you are simply out of hours. The commute eats the margin, work eats the middle, and by the time you are back in the valley you have enough left to feed people and go to bed. Then a Saturday arrives and you are supposed to be present and warm, and you find you are mostly tired.
Underneath that, the ordinary squeeze of family life keeps going. A marriage that has become logistics. A teenager who needs more than you have this week. An aging parent an hour or a state away. Money that works on paper and never feels comfortable. Grief you postponed because there was no clear week in which to have it.
Scotts Valley is also small, and privacy carries real weight here. People know each other from school pickup, from the market, from soccer. Plenty of people have not sought help partly because of who might notice. That reason is understandable, and it is one that video quietly dissolves.
The commute is not a small detail. It is often the thing that decides whether therapy happens at all.
What tends to bring Scotts Valley clients in
The two-commute household
Both of you on the road, the family running as a relay. We look at what is actually solvable and what needs to be grieved rather than fixed.
Parenting on empty
You are patient at work and short at home, and you do not like who that makes you. That gap is workable, and it is not a character flaw.
A marriage gone quiet
Not hostile, just administrative. I work with couples as well as individuals, by video, on the parts that stopped getting spoken.
Caring for a parent
Sandwiched between a teenager and a mother, doing both by phone and by car. Anticipatory grief belongs here too.
Patterns that will not shift
The same argument, the same spiral, the same three a.m. Insight has not been enough; this is where repatterning work comes in.
Old trauma surfacing
Something long ago that has come back up in midlife. Paced work, at your speed. I am EMDR certified.
What starting looks like
It begins with a free 20-minute consult, by phone, text or video, at a time that does not require you to leave anywhere. You describe what is going on. I tell you what I think, including if I am not the right fit.
From there, sessions are weekly at first, by secure video. My core areas are grief and loss, emotional and mental patterns that will not shift, and trauma, PTSD and complex trauma, along with anxiety. I am EMDR certified and a certified hypnotherapist and draw on Internal Family Systems and somatic approaches as they fit the person in front of me.
I do not treat bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, and I would point you toward a clinician set up for that work. I am out of network; I provide superbills you can submit for possible reimbursement, and the fees page has the rate and the 72-hour cancellation policy in plain language.
To be clear about the practical side: there is no office in Scotts Valley and no in-person appointments. Everything happens by secure video with people located in California.
- Evening and early-morning times for commuters
- Individuals, couples, families and seniors
- Grief, including losses that were postponed
- Trauma, PTSD and complex trauma
- Anxiety and the depletion underneath it
- Telehealth only, by secure video or audio, for people physically located in California. Laurie, LMFT.
Questions from Scotts Valley
- Is video therapy as effective as in person?
- For most of what I work with, the research and my own experience both say yes — talking therapy done well by video holds up. What matters more than the medium is whether you and I are a genuine fit and whether you can speak freely for the hour. That said, I will be plain about the other half: some people simply prefer being in a room with another person, and that preference is legitimate. If you know that about yourself, tell me on the consult call and I will help you look for someone local instead of talking you into something you do not want.
- I commute over 17 — when can we meet?
- Early and evening times exist for exactly this reason. Some Scotts Valley clients take a slot before the drive rather than after it, when they still have something left. Others meet at the end of the day from home, once the commute is done and they are not watching a clock. A few have met from a parked car after work, before driving back over the hill, which turns the worst part of the day into the quietest part. We will find a time that does not require you to add a trip to your week.
- How private is this really?
- Sessions run on a secure, HIPAA-compliant video platform, and what you say in session stays between us within the limits the law sets for every California therapist — the same limits that apply in any office. Practically, video removes the parts of privacy people actually worry about in a town where everyone knows everyone: no parking outside a recognizable building, no shared waiting room, no chance encounter with a neighbor on the way out. This website collects no clinical information at all.
- What if my house is never quiet?
- Then we plan for that instead of pretending otherwise. Headphones do most of the work. Some parents meet during a school day, some after bedtime, some from a car in the driveway with the engine off, which is genuinely one of the more private rooms available in a full house. If you need to keep your voice low, we adjust — I would rather work quietly than have you wait for a silent house that is not coming.
A session that costs you no driving
Book a free consult, or send a text. Sessions are by secure video for people located anywhere in California, with early and evening times for anyone who spends part of the day on Highway 17.