Individual Therapy
Individual therapy is one of the most effective ways to address the emotional difficulties that, at some point, touch almost every life — whether that’s anxiety around a new relationship, sadness at the loss of someone you love, or the weight of sustained stress at work. Many of these experiences resolve on their own, without professional support.
Sometimes, however, they don’t. When difficulties persist — rooted in early life experiences that have shaped how you think, feel, and relate to the world, whether you are aware of them or not — that is precisely where individual therapy can help. The work of therapy is to bring those deeper roots into view, understand their impact, and build a genuinely different way of moving through the life in front of you.
How does individual therapy help?
Through individual therapy using cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), we can explore these early life experiences to help get to the root of your emotional difficulties or mental health disorder. Once we know your triggers, I can help you create new behaviors and skills to improve your mental health and your relationships.Â
Individual therapy sessions are offered at my office in Westlake Village, California, or through telehealth. We typically meet once a week, though the frequency of your session varies depending on your individual needs.Â
What does individual therapy treat?Â
It can help you work through most any mental health disorder or relationship issue. I have extensive experience treating conditions like:
- Anger
- Depression
- Personality problems
- Self-esteem and confidence problems
- Anxiety
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
- Phobias
- Stress
- Bereavement, grief, and loss
- Parenting
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
- Bipolar Disorder
- Panic attacks
- Sexual problems and sexuality
Whether you’re looking for a way to manage the symptoms of conditions like anxiety or depression or want to improve your relationships, individual therapy can help.
What is cognitive behavioral therapy?Â
Cognitive behavioral therapy is an evidenced-based therapy that’s proven to be effective for treating mental health issues like anxiety and depression. It’s based on the principles that your symptoms are based on such things as unhealthy ways of thinking and learned patterns of behavior, and that you can learn betters ways to cope. Research shows that CBT therapy can lead to improved functioning and an increased quality of life.
CBT is a collaborative therapy that requires us to work together to uncover the root of your symptoms and develop an individualized treatment plan.
How does CBT help?
During our individual therapy sessions, we use CBT to help you understand how your thoughts and behaviors lead to your symptoms. With this knowledge, we can work on giving you the skills needed to enhance your coping skills and learn new behaviors so you can successfully relieve your symptoms.
Using CBT therapy you can learn to:
- Focus more closely on the changes you want
- Identify common negative themes that reappear in different parts of your life
- Strengthen the desire and willingness to take risks toward change
- Name and change some of the beliefs that keep you stuck in your situation
- Become aware of some of the hidden scripts that you’ve been living out
- Pick up ineffective patterns of social interaction with others
- Become more conscious of your decisions
- Celebrate any positive steps taken
- Gain more freedom to expand your dreams and vision of the future
- Analyze possible means to implement those dreams
- Develop your capacity to be more creative
- Evaluate whether your new action patterns are leading to the change you want
My clients have had great success using CBT therapy to make long-term positive changes in their lives.
To schedule an individual therapy session using cognitive behavioral therapy, contact me today.
Anxiety
Anxiety – that familiar knot in your stomach, the racing thoughts, the persistent unease – can manifest in countless ways and significantly impact our daily lives. While a natural response to perceived threats, it becomes a concern when it overwhelms us, hindering our performance and disrupting our everyday routines. You might experience a constant sense of unease, either generally or tied to specific situations.
The physical sensations of anxiety can be unsettling: a pounding heart, shortness of breath, tremors, dizziness, chest tightness, nausea, muscle tension, and headaches. These physical symptoms often intertwine with worrying thoughts, difficulty sleeping and concentrating, and a dip in self-confidence.
Different Faces:
Anxiety isn't a one-size-fits-all experience. It's often categorized into three main types:
- Generalized Anxiety: This involves a persistent and excessive worry about various events or activities, often without a clear identifiable cause. Some describe it as "free-floating anxiety," where the anxious person feels constantly on edge, sometimes even becoming anxious about feeling anxious. Symptoms can include irritability, difficulty concentrating, persistent negative thinking, sleep disturbances, and physical manifestations like excessive thirst, stomach upset, frequent urination, muscle aches, and headaches.
- Health Anxiety: Health anxiety is a persistent fear that something is seriously wrong with your health—even when medical exams come back normal. It often involves constant body scanning, Googling symptoms, and seeking reassurance from doctors or loved ones. While these actions might bring short-term relief, they often intensify the anxiety over time. Therapy can help you learn how to break this cycle, tolerate uncertainty, and reconnect with your body in a more grounded, peaceful way.
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- Phobias: These involve intense and irrational fears of specific objects or situations, leading to significant avoidance behaviors. You can find more information about phobias at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
- Panic Disorder: Characterized by sudden episodes of intense fear that peak quickly, often accompanied by physical symptoms like heart palpitations, sweating, and a feeling of losing control.Â
The Vicious Cycle of Anxiety:
Stressful situations at work or home can easily spill over into other areas of life, triggering anxiety. Similarly, a frightening experience can lead to lingering fear, as seen in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The interplay between mental and physical anxiety symptoms can create a challenging cycle. A physical symptom might trigger anxious thoughts, which in turn intensify the physical sensations, leading to a feeling of being trapped. In panic attacks, this cycle escalates rapidly. Even the effort of trying to control it can be stressful, inadvertently fueling the problem.
Strategies for Managing Anxiety:
Understanding how it works – as a combination of physical and mental responses rooted in the "fight or flight" mechanism – is the first step towards regaining control. Here are some helpful strategies:
- Relaxation Techniques: While not an instant cure, consistent practice of relaxation exercises like guided imagery and progressive muscle relaxation can significantly reduce it over time.
- Regular Exercise: Low-impact aerobic exercise strengthens the heart, making it less prone to the pounding sensations associated with it. Exercise also helps release built-up tension.
- Dietary Awareness: Reducing or eliminating caffeine, found in many beverages, can help break a vicious cycle as it can mimic anxiety symptoms like increased heart rate and sleep disruption.
- Setting Boundaries ("Just Say NO!"): Overcommitting yourself can lead to a build-up of low-level anxiety about multiple tasks, which can be just as overwhelming as intense anxiety about one major issue. Learning to say no is a powerful form of self-care.
Anxiety Management Psychotherapy with Marina Edelman, LMFT
At the practice of Marina Edelman, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Westlake Village, CA, we understand the complexities of anxiety and offer comprehensive and holistic care to help you find lasting relief. Psychotherapy can be instrumental in addressing the root causes, and equipping you with effective coping mechanisms.
- Explore Underlying Causes: Uncover the triggers and experiences that contribute to it, including stressors related to work, family, and past events.
- Examine Thought Patterns and Behaviors: Identify the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that may be exacerbating your stress levels.
- Gain Self-Understanding and Insight: Develop a deeper awareness of your personal stress triggers and patterns.
- Develop Tailor-Made Coping Strategies: Learn and practice techniques that are specifically suited to your needs and effective for long-term management.
Marina Edelman, LMFT, offers support for a range of anxiety-related issues, including:
- Panic Attacks
- Generalized Worry
- Social
- Nervousness
- Performance
- Shyness
- Sexual
Anxiety Counseling & Therapy for Relationships
Anxiety doesn't stay contained to the individual experiencing it — it moves through a relationship. It shows up as the need for constant reassurance that exhausts a partner. As the avoidance of difficult conversations that leaves important things permanently unspoken. As a hypervigilance to tone and meaning that turns ordinary interactions into something to be analyzed and feared. As the withdrawal that a partner experiences as coldness or indifference, without ever understanding its true source.
When anxiety is unaddressed in one or both partners, it quietly shapes the emotional climate of the relationship — creating cycles of pursuit and withdrawal, conflict that seems disproportionate to its trigger, and a chronic low-grade tension that neither person fully understands but both consistently feel.
In my practice, I work with individuals and couples where anxiety — whether diagnosed or simply present — is affecting the quality of connection, communication, and intimacy. Using a blend of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), and somatic approaches, we address both the individual experience of anxiety and the relational patterns it has created. That means helping the anxious partner understand their triggers, build genuine regulation tools, and communicate their needs without the anxiety doing the speaking for them. And it means helping both partners understand what anxiety actually looks like in a relationship — so that what has felt like rejection, neediness, or conflict can finally be seen for what it is.
Anxiety in relationships is not a character flaw and it is not a reason to give up on the partnership. It is a clinical pattern with real roots and real solutions — and with the right support, it is one of the most responsive presentations I work with.
Take the First Step Towards Change
Many clients choose to address stress through couples therapy, where we work directly on the relational patterns driving emotional overload.
Contact Marina Edelman, LMFT, today for a confidential consultation.
Learn More About Marina Edelman’s Services
You can also find more information on her Psychology Today profile: Marina Edelman – Psychology Today. Or explore resources on the AEDP Institute website: Marina Edelman – AEDP Institute
FAQ
What is individual therapy and how does it work?
It is a one-on-one relationship between a client and a licensed therapist, built around a single purpose: helping you understand yourself more deeply, process what has been difficult, and build a genuinely better relationship with your own inner life. It works through the consistent, focused attention of a skilled clinician who is trained to hear not just what you say but what is underneath it — the patterns, the histories, the beliefs, and the emotional experiences that are shaping how you think, feel, and move through the world. Sessions are typically fifty minutes, held weekly, and guided by your goals and what you bring into the room. In my practice, individual therapy is never passive. It is an active, collaborative process in which you are not simply heard but genuinely helped — with direct feedback, practical tools, and a clear sense of direction from the very first session.
How do I know if individual therapy is right for me?
If something in your life — your mood, your relationships, your sense of yourself, your ability to function — feels harder than it should, and your own efforts to address it have not produced the relief or change you were hoping for, individual therapy is worth pursuing. You do not need to be in crisis. You do not need a formal diagnosis. You do not need to have experienced something dramatic or traumatic enough to justify taking up a therapist’s time. In my clinical experience, the people who benefit most from individual therapy are often the ones who come in not because everything has collapsed but because something quieter is consistently getting in the way — and they are finally ready to understand what it is. If you are wondering whether therapy is right for you, that question alone is usually answer enough.
What issues can individual therapy help with?
Our individual therapy is effective across an extraordinarily broad range of presentations — which is part of what makes it one of the most versatile clinical tools available. In my practice, I work with anxiety and depression, trauma and PTSD, grief and loss, life transitions, relationship difficulties, low self-esteem, chronic stress and burnout, identity questions, and the persistent patterns of thought and behavior that keep producing outcomes a person doesn’t want. I also work with clients who don’t carry a specific diagnosis but who have a clear and honest sense that they are not living as fully, as freely, or as authentically as they want to be. That is more than sufficient reason to come in — and it is some of the most meaningful work I do.
What can I expect during an individual therapy session?
The first thing you can expect is to be received without judgment — whatever you bring, however long you have been carrying it, and regardless of how much or how little you are ready to share at the outset. In the early sessions, we focus on understanding your history, your goals, and what has brought you to therapy at this particular moment in your life. From there, sessions are collaborative and purposeful — guided by what you are working on, with enough structure to create genuine progress and enough flexibility to follow what is most alive and important in the room. You will not simply be listened to and reflected back at. In my practice, you will receive direct observations, honest feedback, and concrete tools to work with between sessions. Therapy should feel like something is actually happening — and from the very first session, my goal is that it does.
How long does it typically take to see results in individual therapy?
This is one of the most important questions to answer honestly — because unrealistic expectations in either direction can undermine the work before it has a chance to take hold. For many clients, something meaningful shifts within the first four to eight sessions — a new way of understanding a pattern, a reduction in the intensity of symptoms, or a concrete skill that is already making daily life more manageable. Deeper change — the kind that rewires longstanding patterns, resolves the roots of chronic anxiety or depression, or rebuilds a relationship with the self that has been damaged over years — takes longer, and it takes consistency. What I can tell you from over two decades of clinical work is that the clients who see the most lasting results are almost always the ones who stay with the process long enough for insight to become genuine change — not just understanding, but a fundamentally different way of living. That timeline is different for everyone. What stays constant is the commitment to getting there.
Take the first step toward healing and connection, schedule your consultation today.
Not sure where to start? Let’s talk.