About Cynthia
Cynthia Cunningham is a California licensed marriage and family therapist with 27 years of clinical experience. She brings both professional knowledge and personal recovery experience to her work, having maintained sobriety for 35 years and worked through codependency and love addiction in her own life. She tends to take a direct, practical approach in sessions.
Cynthia helps people build boundaries, learn to say no, and shift patterns that keep them stuck.
Background and approach
She guides steps that can reduce panic and anxiety and ease depressive symptoms in day-to-day life. Her background combines several therapy styles to match each person’s needs. She draws on cognitive behavioral techniques to change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors.
She also uses Attachment-Based perspectives to look at how early relationships affect current patterns. Cynthia values collaboration. Clients set the pace and choose goals.
The therapist offers clear tools, homework when helpful, and straightforward feedback so progress is measurable. People seek her for relationship struggles, addictions, anxiety, grief, self-esteem and career stress among other concerns. She also works with issues such as body image, caregiver stress, attention concerns, and complex mood conditions.
Cynthia aims to be a steady companion through change and to help people take practical first steps toward a different life.
How Cynthia’s Approaches Work Online
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses on helping people notice thoughts without getting stuck and move toward values-based actions. It can help when anxiety or avoidance keeps someone from living the life they want. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) targets the link between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and offers concrete exercises to reduce panic, worry, or depressive patterns. These approaches are goal-oriented and skill-focused.Finding the right approach is part of the work. Cynthia collaborates with each person to pick methods that match their goals and personality. Together they try different tools, review what helps, and adjust the plan so sessions feel useful and relevant.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging to make therapy fit into a busy life. Video calls let people work face-to-face when visual interaction matters. Phone sessions use less bandwidth and can be easier when speaking is preferred. Live chat or text messaging allows shorter check-ins, ongoing reflections between sessions, and flexibility during a hectic day. These options aim to increase access and let the therapeutic work continue even when schedules are tight.
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Addictions
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fertility issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Stress, Anxiety
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Existential Therapy
- Gottman Method
- Hypnotherapy
- Imago Relationship Therapy
- Jungian Therapy
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Experience
- 27 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English
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