About Marla
Marla Gentile is a licensed professional counselor with four decades of clinical experience. She practices in California and brings a calm, steady presence to sessions. She focuses on helping people manage stress and anxiety and on recovery after trauma and loss.
She listens first and asks clear questions to understand what matters most. Her approach privileges the client's experience - she assumes people know their story and builds from their strengths.
Background and approach
Marla emphasizes small, practical steps that fit into everyday life rather than long lists of tasks. In sessions she uses attachment-focused ideas to look at how past relationships shape current worries and patterns. She also draws on mindfulness to teach simple skills for calming the body and quieting racing thoughts.
When trauma is a factor, she can use EMDR techniques alongside talk-based work to help process upsetting memories. Her style is warm and gentle but direct. Marla helps people find clearer boundaries, improve communication, and reconnect to a sense of purpose after major changes.
She supports those dealing with grief, caregiver stress, codependency, and feelings of isolation. People who do best with her tend to want a collaborative therapist who offers both listening and practical tools. Marla encourages steady progress and helps clients set realistic goals for daily life.
She also works with career-related stress and intimacy concerns.
How attachment, mindfulness, and EMDR translate to online work
Attachment-Based Therapy explores how early relationships shape current emotions and patterns. Online sessions use discussion and exercises to identify attachment needs and to practice healthier ways of relating, which can help with anxiety and intimacy concerns.Mindfulness Therapy teaches simple attention and breathing skills to reduce stress and quiet racing thoughts. These practices can be guided in video or phone sessions and used between meetings to manage daily anxiety and build tolerance for difficult feelings.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR, helps process traumatic memories so they feel less disruptive. When appropriate, EMDR elements can be integrated into remote sessions alongside talk therapy to address trauma and abuse symptoms.
Choosing the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will work with the client to match methods to their needs, goals, and comfort level. Progress is checked regularly and plans are adjusted as needed.
Online therapy offers practical flexibility: video calls let the therapist see nonverbal cues, phone sessions use less bandwidth, and live chat or text messaging make brief check-ins or scheduling easier. These options help fit therapy into busy days and different routines while keeping the focus on steady, usable tools.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Attachment issues
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Divorce and separation
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 40 years
- Licensed
- California, North Carolina, Florida, South Carolina
- Languages
- English
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