About Shirley
Shirley Semel is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) based in California. She brings eight years of clinical experience to sessions and focuses on helping people manage stress and anxiety. Shirley speaks English and offers therapy through several online formats to fit different needs.
She uses a client-centered stance to build trust and a nonjudgmental space. That means listening first, then guiding conversations toward what matters most to each person.
Background and approach
Shirley draws on cognitive behavioral techniques to help people notice and change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors that feed worry and low mood. Her background includes work with addiction, anger management, and relapse prevention in group settings. She also has experience supporting people through relationship and family concerns, grief, trauma, and life transitions.
Those experiences inform practical strategies she shares in sessions. Shirley aims to help people identify what keeps them stuck and what brings them joy. She also offers support around parenting stress, sleep and eating concerns, caregiving strain, and chronic illness challenges.
Sessions focus on clear steps and small changes that add up over time. To begin, prospects complete a short matching questionnaire and then schedule appointments. Sessions are delivered by video calls, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging and use a subscription that can be canceled at any time.
How Shirley blends approaches for online care
Shirley uses client-centered therapy to make early sessions about your experience and priorities. That approach focuses on listening, reflecting what you say, and helping you find your own answers, which is useful for anxiety, relationship concerns, and life changes.She also employs cognitive behavioral therapy, a hands-on method that helps identify stressful thought patterns and test new behaviors. CBT is often used for anxiety, mood concerns, sleep problems, and coping with everyday stressors.
Choosing the right approach is a team effort. Shirley will talk with each person about goals, preferences, and what has or hasn't helped before. Together you can try one method or mix techniques to fit your needs and change the plan as progress is made.
Online sessions offer flexible ways to work toward those goals. Video calls let you meet face to face for deeper conversation, phone sessions can be an easier low-bandwidth option, and live chat or text-based messaging support shorter check-ins or ongoing coaching between meetings. These formats make it easier to fit therapy into a workday, manage caregiving schedules, or keep regular contact while living in California.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Addictions
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating disorders
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Mood disorders
- Parenting issues
- Self esteem
- Sleeping disorders
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 8 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English
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