About Stephanie
Stephanie Lerma is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) practicing in California. She has five years of clinical experience and speaks English and Spanish. Stephanie focuses on helping people who are facing stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, and depression.
She uses practical skills from evidence-based therapies to help people manage intense feelings and handle daily pressures. Sessions emphasize teaching tools that can be used between meetings, like coping strategies for anxiety and steps to improve communication with close relatives.
Background and approach
Stephanie adapts the pace to each person's needs and focuses on clear, achievable goals. Her work also addresses challenges tied to attachment, abandonment, body image, and caregiving strain. She helps people untangle family of origin issues and handle separation or divorce stress in ways that reduce shame and boost clarity.
When trauma or self-harm concerns appear, the focus is on stabilizing emotions and building safer coping patterns. Stephanie aims to make therapy straightforward and collaborative. She explains techniques in everyday language and checks in about what is helpful.
Progress is tracked through small, measurable steps rather than vague promises. Clients can use a mix of conversation and skill practice during sessions. The emphasis is on practical change that fits day-to-day life, such as improving sleep, lowering anxiety spikes, or repairing communication habits.
Work continues at a pace the client finds manageable.
How therapeutic approaches fit into online care
Stephanie uses a mix of proven approaches explained in simple terms. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on spotting unhelpful thoughts and testing them with real-life experiments to reduce anxiety and improve mood. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) teaches concrete skills for emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and better interpersonal moments, which can help when feelings feel overwhelming.Finding the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist will talk with the client about goals, try methods that match those goals, and adjust as needed. This is a collaborative process where feedback guides which techniques stay and which are changed.
Online sessions offer flexibility for different needs. Video calls let people have a face-to-face conversation without travel. Phone sessions work well when bandwidth is limited or when someone prefers not to be on camera. Live chat and text-based messaging make it easier to check in between sessions or to have shorter, more frequent touchpoints during stressful stretches. These options help fit therapy into a busy life while keeping the focus on practical progress.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Family conflicts
- Parenting issues
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Attachment issues
- Body image
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Communication problems
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Post-traumatic stress
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
- Experience
- 5 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English, Spanish
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