Allie Gaona, LMFT

Therapist

Hello and welcome! My name is Allie and I’m a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. I work with teens, adults, and families in the states of California and Hawaii. If you are looking for a meaningful change in your life, I can help you get there. My goal is for our relationship to be an honest, understanding, and helpful one that leads you to the change that is needed in your life. When we explore what led you to your current experiences, we can discover what is needed to help you live a life aligned with what you want and who you are now. I’m looking forward to getting to know all the different and unique things that make you, you!

Insight AND Embodied Processing

You might be asking yourself, “Why am I always feeling, thinking, or acting this way?” This question often comes from a place of exhaustion, and a sense of “stuckness”. With my help, you will gain insight by exploring this question in a non-judgmental curious way, looking into the context that led you here. Insight can provide a valuable ability to know yourself more intimately and compassionately. Another vital part of the process is being able to experience needed corrective emotional experiences so that your body, and not just your mind, can move forward from what has happened in the past. I will be there with you through this process, supporting all the different parts of you that come up so that you can move forward with healing and begin to live a more fulfilling life.

Military, Veteran, and Adolescent/Parenting

I have worked with adults, adolescents, and parents each with their own unique experiences of single event traumas, complex trauma, relational challenges, anxiety, depression, mood disorders, and life transitions. With my own lived experience as a military spouse combined with years of working with military service members, veterans, and their families I truly understand the unique challenges you face as a military connected person or family. From the impact of deployments, to moving away from your support system, to employment challenges for spouses, the military lifestyle is something I am familiar with.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

Everyone is talking about the impact of trauma on our mental health these days, and for a good reason. Many of us have experienced traumas, which can be described as an experience or series of experiences that overwhelm our mind’s capacity to cope. Talk therapy can often be incredibly challenging when you are repeatedly discussing these kinds of experiences that overwhelm your nervous system. This is why EMDR was created. Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is a form of therapy that encourages the client to briefly focus their attention on a traumatic memory while also experiencing something called “bilateral stimulation” (such as moving your eyes side to side or tapping side to side). The use of bilateral stimulation, along with the therapist’s guidance tends to soothe our brain in such a way that allows the brain’s natural healing ability to kick in, helping to reprocess the traumatic events adaptively. I have been trained in using this modality and can use it as a helpful supplementation to your therapy treatment or as the predominant modality when appropriate. Click here to learn more about EMDR therapy.   

Diversity

Each of us has developed a sense of identity, drawing from our family history, origin, language, relationships, sexual preferences, experiences and personality. I am committed to remaining curious about all the ways in which you identify, what these identities mean to you, and being transparent when my lived experience may impact my understanding of your experience. I work collaboratively with you to seek greater understanding of your experiences without judgment.