Do you feel powerless, hopeless and lost with your pre-teen/adolescent? Are your emotional, physical and mental state becoming impacted by the stressors of your parenting, home and work demands? I provide client-centered individual parent therapy, individual adolescent therapy (ages 11-17), and parent & child counseling. I treat clients who may suffer from conditions including, but not limited to: Depression, Anxiety, trauma, adjustment, and interpersonal issues. My name is Guisela Gutierrez and I am a bilingual Licensed Clinical Social Worker. I am a proud Angeleno with Central American/Mexican roots and a mother of two beautiful children 11 and 16 years old. I have served as a school social worker and consultant in the Los Angeles region for the last 9 years, where I provided counseling services, crisis intervention, case management and consultation for children ages 5-17, adult students and other school stakeholders such as staff and parents. Seeking therapy can feel scary but you're making the right choice. You deserve a safe space to heal and grow. I look forward to getting the opportunity to be a part of your lifeboat and help you reach the goals you want for you and your family.
What can clients expect to take away from sessions with you?
In our first session together, we will start with brief introductions, then dive into the specific challenges you’re facing. Additionally, we will discuss expectations of engaging in a therapeutic relationship to help me create a tailored plan for us to work through in follow-up sessions.
What treatment methods and tools do you utilize?
Client-centered therapy truly involves placing myself where my client is and allowing them to direct me and be the expert of their own lives. I help them dive into their inner experiences, emphasizing their concerns, care and interests to create change and improvement. I also use an integrative method, allowing me to blend elements from different approaches paying careful attention to the unique strengths and needs of my clients.
Explain to clients what areas you feel are your biggest strengths.
I provide individual therapy for both parents and children (currently only accepting referrals for adult parents). When working with your child it is important to me that I also have 2-3 sessions with a parent only (beginning, middle and the end of treatment and only with client/parent mutual agreement) where I can learn more about parenting patterns, family dynamics and review progress and learned tools to use after termination of services. Building a partnership and empowering you as parents is key to support the progress and growth of you and your family. Parent-child sessions: Facilitates communication and addresses healthy and unhealthy family dynamic issues around boundaries and parenting patterns.
Describe the client(s) you are best positioned to serve.
Pre-teens (ages 10-12), adolescents (ages 13-17) but currently only accepting referrals for adult parents (English and/or Spanish speaking).