About Brett
Brett Smith is a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT) with 22 years of experience. He focuses on helping people who feel overwhelmed by stress, anxiety, trauma, depression, and relationship problems. He speaks plainly and tends to be direct in sessions, offering practical steps people can try between meetings.
He draws on years of work with trauma and personality concerns, including time conducting emergency psychiatric assessments. That background informs how he evaluates difficult symptoms and prioritizes immediate safety and coping skills.
Background and approach
He also brings lived experience as a combat veteran and former law enforcement officer, which shaped his interest in trauma and PTSD. Brett commonly uses dialectical behavior therapy - DBT - for teaching emotion regulation and distress tolerance skills. He also integrates cognitive behavioral techniques to adjust unhelpful thinking and habits.
His approach can include hypnotherapy tools based on Ericksonian and transformational ideas when those methods fit a person's goals. Sessions emphasize clear goals, skill building, and practical strategies for daily life. Brett aims to help people reduce constant worry, improve sleep and eating patterns, handle grief, and manage work-related or compassion fatigue.
He also addresses concerns related to intimacy, body image, and sexual subcultures when those topics arise. Outside of therapy he sails, backpacks, kayaks, and trains dogs with his wife. He has created video material related to topics discussed in therapy for people who want to learn on their own time.
Approaches that guide online sessions
Dialectical behavior therapy - DBT - focuses on teaching concrete skills for managing strong emotions, tolerating distress, and improving communication. It is often useful for people who feel easily overwhelmed or who want tools to stay calmer in heated moments.Cognitive behavioral therapy - CBT - helps identify unhelpful thoughts and habits and replace them with more balanced thinking and small behavioral changes. It is frequently used for anxiety, depression, sleep problems, and worry-driven behaviors.
Hypnotherapy in Brett's practice uses Ericksonian and transformational techniques to support relaxation, habit change, and focused imagery work when a client is open to that style. It is offered as one of several tools rather than a standalone promise of change.
Finding the right approach is part of the process. He works collaboratively to match methods to a person's needs, goals, and comfort level and will adjust methods as progress is made. Clients and therapist review what helps and what needs to shift over time.
Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to fit different schedules and preferences. Video lets people work face to face; phone can be simpler when bandwidth is limited; chat or text supports quick check-ins or ongoing written reflection. These options make it easier to fit therapy around work, travel, or daily obligations.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Family conflicts
- Trauma and abuse
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Anger management
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Eating disorders
- Family of origin issues
- First responder issues
- Grief
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Mood disorders
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 22 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English
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