San Diego, California
Online Therapy for San Diego
San Diego is a two-hour drive from my office on a generous day and a four-hour one on a Friday, so this is a video practice for people down there, and I would rather be straight about that than dangle an office nobody is going to use.
San Diego clients often describe a gap between how the city looks and how their week feels. When you are struggling in a place that photographs this well, there is an extra layer of guilt on top — a sense that you have forfeited the right to be unhappy — and that layer usually has to come off before anything underneath it can move.
How Sessions Run
How video works from San Diego
Secure video, weekly, at a fixed time. Clients log in from North Park apartments, Carlsbad kitchen tables after school drop-off, La Jolla home offices, and more than a few from a parked car outside a base or a hospital between shifts. Same state, same time zone, no scheduling arithmetic.
The absence of a drive does a specific thing for San Diego clients, which is that it makes therapy survivable during a hard stretch. When you are depleted, an hour of freeway is often the thing that ends treatment. Video removes that failure point, and consistency over months is what actually produces change — far more than any single insightful session.
Who I See
Who I see from San Diego
Healthcare workers across the Scripps, Sharp, and UCSD systems. Biotech and defense-adjacent professionals in Sorrento Valley and Torrey Pines. Teachers, small-business owners, and a notable number of people connected to the military community — spouses, adult children, veterans who left service years ago and are only now looking at what it left behind.
There is also a large contingent of people who moved from somewhere colder for the quality of life and found that the pattern they were hoping to leave behind boarded the plane with them. Geography is a very poor treatment for an attachment injury, though I understand the appeal of trying.
In the Room
What San Diego brings into a session
Guilt about struggling in paradise
The weather does not owe you a mood. Distress in a beautiful place is not ingratitude, and treating it as a character flaw reliably delays care by years.
Frequent goodbyes
In a city with this much rotation — deployments, relocations, contracts — people become practiced at not attaching. That protects you and it also quietly costs you.
Trauma that surfaces once life calms
Many clients get through the hard years functioning well and fall apart afterward. That sequence is common and it is not a relapse into weakness.
California Only
Licensure, and what that means for you
I hold a California psychologist license, PSY35842, and I can only practice with clients who are physically in California during the session. San Diego qualifies. Tijuana, an hour away, does not, and neither does a semester in Arizona — the rule follows your body, not your address.
In-person sessions exist only at the Santa Monica office, which for most San Diego clients is not a realistic weekly trip. Plan on video as the actual format rather than as a backup.
Where to Next
What San Diego clients most often come in for
Free Consultation
Start with a conversation, not a commitment.
The first step is a free consultation call. We talk about what brings you here, what you have already tried, and whether working together makes sense. If I am not the right fit, I will say so and point you somewhere better.
- · You request a time on the form, and I confirm by email
- · Telehealth anywhere in California, or in person in Santa Monica
- · Private pay, with superbills for out-of-network reimbursement
- · 48 hours' notice for changes or cancellations
Or call the office at (213) 761-8555.