About Valerie
Valerie Novak is a licensed marriage and family therapist with ten years of clinical experience in California. She focuses on helping people manage stress and anxiety while also addressing relationship and parenting concerns. Her approach treats the client as the expert in their own life and builds on existing strengths.
Valerie uses straightforward, person-centered work to help people talk through what is getting in the way. She combines that with practical cognitive-behavioral strategies to change unhelpful thinking and behaviors.
Background and approach
For people carrying trauma, she integrates methods designed to reduce the emotional hold of painful memories. Sessions focus on clear goals and small steps that fit daily life. Conversations aim to clarify what matters most and identify habits to practice between meetings.
Valerie also supports people facing grief, addiction, anger, and low self-esteem. She has additional experience with attachment concerns, caregiver stress, end-of-life counseling, and issues related to adoption and foster care. This background helps when family history or early relationships affect current patterns.
Valerie blends listening with concrete tools so people leave sessions with something to try. She encourages steady progress rather than quick fixes. Taking the first step can feel hard, and she offers steady guidance through the process.
How Valerie’s approaches work online
Attachment-based work focuses on how early relationships shape current bonds and emotions. Online sessions help people notice patterns that affect trust, closeness, and reactions in relationships, and then practice different ways of connecting.Client-centered therapy emphasizes listening and working at the client’s pace. The therapist follows the person’s lead, reflects what is felt, and supports goals chosen together, which can be especially helpful when sorting through stress or life transitions.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) looks at thoughts and behaviors that keep problems going and teaches small experiments and skills to change them. It pairs well with short exercises to try between sessions when using video or messaging.
Valerie works collaboratively to find the best fit for each person. She talks with clients about goals, preferences, and what has or hasn’t helped before, then adjusts methods as the work unfolds.
Online formats offer flexibility. Video calls let people use visual cues and deeper conversation. Phone sessions can be simpler when bandwidth is limited or for a quick check-in. Live chat and text-based messaging let clients share updates or get short, focused support between meetings. These options make it easier to keep therapy part of a busy life.
Questions people ask
What concerns does Valerie commonly address?
What is her general therapeutic style?
How much clinical experience does she have?
What credentials does she hold and where is she based?
Which languages are supported in sessions?
What session formats are available?
How are sessions paid for and what does it cost?
How do I begin working together?
What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coaching
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Self esteem
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 10 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English
We will earn a commission if you sign up through our link, at no cost to you.