About Sydney
Sydney Erskine is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 24 years of experience. She helps people who are struggling with anxiety, stress, addiction, grief, depression, and relationship concerns. Her style is warm and straightforward, aimed at helping people make clear, manageable changes.
Sydney draws on a whole-person view when she meets someone. She pays attention to the biological, psychological, social, and spiritual parts of life. That means sessions can include emotional reflection, practical skills, and attention to how the body holds stress.
Background and approach
Her work blends client-centered listening with targeted, solution-focused steps. Conversations often move between exploring past patterns and trying small new behaviors that can make daily life easier. She uses mindfulness and somatic techniques to help clients notice how feelings show up in the body.
Clients typically begin by identifying the issues that brought them to therapy now. Together they set measurable goals and decide on the next concrete steps. Sessions aim to build internal motivation and clear actions that fit each person's life.
Sydney has spent much of her career in addiction treatment centers, dual-diagnosis programs, and independent practice in the San Francisco Bay Area. She brings experience working with people facing career strain, caregiver stress, attachment and family of origin problems, and issues around intimacy and self-esteem. Sessions are available in English and are offered through video, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging.
People who want to start choose the Start Therapy button, complete a short matching questionnaire, and schedule based on the therapist's availability.
Therapeutic approaches and how they fit online
Sydney commonly uses client-centered therapy and emotionally-focused therapy along with mindfulness-based techniques. Client-centered therapy focuses on listening and building a compassionate, nonjudgmental relationship so clients can find their own solutions. Emotionally-focused therapy helps identify patterns in how people respond to strong feelings and works to create new ways of relating to those emotions. Mindfulness therapy teaches simple attention practices that reduce reactivity and help with worry, stress, and sleep issues.Finding the best approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will talk with each person about goals, preferences, and what feels most useful. Together they try methods, adjust when needed, and prioritize practical steps that lead to change rather than sticking to a single technique.
Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. Video is useful for face-to-face conversation and somatic noticing, phone works when bandwidth is limited or for quick check-ins, and chat or messaging can fit short updates or times when typing feels easier. These options make it simpler to fit therapy into a busy life and to maintain steady progress across weeks.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Addictions
- LGBT
- Relationship issues
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Multicultural concerns
- Post-traumatic stress
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Somatization
- Stress, Anxiety
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 24 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English
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