Individual therapy for the in-between years.

Maybe what you’ve been calling stress is actually something more specific. Most clients arrive with one named thing on the surface and three more underneath.

Individual therapy at Align is a weekly relationship with one of our California-licensed therapists. You choose the therapist that works best for you. The work goes at your pace. The therapist is yours alone — not rotated, not assigned randomly. The first session is mostly about deciding whether to come back; the next dozen sessions are where the structured work happens.

• Anxiety, overthinking, and the 12 a.m. spiral
• Relationship anxiety, attachment, and the loop of doubt
• Identity questions — cultural, self-worth, people-pleasing
• Breaking family patterns, boundaries, reparenting
• Burnout, perfectionism, and the high-achiever shape of anxiety

Couples therapy for the same fight, in a different costume.

Every couple has work to do. Those who find the person who meets their needs know they don’t have to do it alone — and that’s where couples therapy comes in.

Sometimes you still love your partner, but you don’t always like them. Maybe intimacy and compliments have turned into criticism and living more as roommates than partners. Maybe you’ve considered couples therapy but worry it’ll bring up the issues you’ve been avoiding, silence that speaks a little too loudly and make you fight even more. We assure you it doesn’t have to — and shouldn’t ever — be that way.

How it works

Our work is grounded in research-based methods including the Gottman Method, Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), and attachment-based work — among the most comprehensive, evidence-based approaches available for relationship improvement today. Based on more than five decades of relationship research, this work uses structured, solution-focused interventions to help couples:

• Communicate more effectively when conversations get hard
• De-escalate your arguments into conflicts and then those conflicts into disagreements
• Resolve conflict without it escalating into the same old fight you’ve had for years
• Strengthen your friendship, intimacy, and the small everyday repair
• Manage stress as a united front
• Navigate big transitions — parenthood, career shifts, cultural differences

Premarital counseling — the harder conversations.

Before the rings, before the wedding, before the families meet — the conversations that build the foundation everything else gets built on.

Premarital counseling at Align goes beyond the standard checklist. Our experience tells us what’s coming next so we help you get on the same page early. We work with couples who want to enter marriage having had the harder conversations on purpose, not by accident. The kind that include money, in-laws, parenting philosophies, what each of you expects in conflict, what you’d do if a job opportunity required a move. Better to have these now than confront this misalignment in year three.

• Communication patterns and the way you both disagree
• Financial alignment — debts brought in, future shared, what counts as enough
• Family of origin influences and in-law dynamics
• Cultural, religious, and value alignment
• Parenting philosophies, before children come
• What each of you needs to feel loved — and what that costs the other

Online therapy — held with care.

Therapy that fits inside your life, not the other way around. Held entirely online, with the same depth as in-person.

Online therapy at Align means real licensed therapists, real clinical work, on a HIPAA-compliant video platform. You log in on your computer or phone from wherever feels right — your room, your car, on your lunch break. Most clients find they’re more honest online because they’re already in their own space or closer to where their triggers occur most often. Less performance, more of what’s actually going on.

• Sessions on a HIPAA-compliant, encrypted video platform
• Available anywhere across California
• Mornings, afternoons, evenings — Sunday through Saturday
• Same therapist every week — no rotation, no algorithm matching
• Secure messaging between sessions for logistics and check-ins

Anxiety & Overthinking — the 12 a.m. spiral.

Maybe what you’ve been calling stress has the shape of anxiety. The mind that won’t slow down. The dread you feel when the day slows down. The performance anxiety hiding inside ambition.

Anxiety often shows up first as physical: shallow breath, jaw tension, the inability to settle. It shows up second as cognitive: the loops, the catastrophizing, the conversations you replay long after they ended. We work with both. CBT for the cognitive patterns, somatic and restructuring work for the changes you want to implement. For why the brain’s alarm fires too often — and how therapy recalibrates it — see Why Therapy Works.

• Generalized anxiety, panic, and the body’s anxiety vocabulary
• Performance anxiety, perfectionism, high-achiever exhaustion
• Sleep anxiety, the 12 a.m. spiral, the night dread
• Social anxiety and the never-ending replay of every conversation
• Health anxiety and the inability to trust your body’s signals

Relationship Anxiety — the closed feedback loop.

Maybe what you’ve been calling “doubts” is really relationship anxiety. The compulsive checking of your feelings or seeking reassurance from your partner. The intrusive comparisons. The loop that hijacks an otherwise good relationship.

Relationship anxiety and ROCD (Relationship OCD) often go unnamed because the people experiencing them assume the doubts mean something — that they don’t really love their partner, that they’re settling, that they should leave. Usually the doubts are anxiety we have to understand better, not a referendum on the relationship. We help you tell them apart.

• Intrusive doubts and compulsive feeling-checking
• Constantly seeking reassurance that leads to self-sabotage
• Attachment activation inside otherwise stable relationships
• Comparison spirals — your relationship vs. everyone else’s
• The “what if I don’t really love them?” loop
• Fear of commitment that has anxiety as its actual driver

Family Boundaries — the good-child trap.

Setting limits with parents and family of origin — especially when the culture you grew up in calls boundaries shameful and selfish.

For many of our clients, boundaries isn’t in the vocabulary they were raised with. Loyalty and compliance is. Sacrifice and unselfishness is. We work with all of it — the love and the limitation, the wanting closeness and needing distance, the question of how to be a good daughter or son and also a person with your own life. The goal isn’t estrangement. It’s balance.

• Boundary work in immigrant and first-generation families
• Communicating disagreement with the utmost respect while still holding firm
• Parents who don’t recognize boundaries as legitimate
• Sibling dynamics and the “good child” trap
• Setting limits without estrangement
• Repair work after years of pattern

People-Pleasing — the exhausting yes.

Saying yes when you mean no. Performing closeness. The fawn response, dressed up as competence.

People-pleasing isn’t always kindness — it’s a survival and protection strategy. We work with the underneath of it: where it started, what it protected you from, and how to find the no that doesn’t cost you the relationships you actually want to keep. Most clients are surprised by how much energy they get back when they stop performing. And how letting go can actually help them feel less resentment.

• Saying yes when you mean no — to family, partners, work, friends
• The fawn response and how it lives in the body
• Performing closeness vs. actual closeness
• The exhausting yes that has been running your life
• Finding the no that doesn’t end the relationship
• Using no as a complete sentence
• Feeling less resentment after each yes because it’s actually authentic

OCD & Intrusive Thoughts — the loops that don’t end.

Pure-O. ROCD. Harm OCD. Purity OCD. The thoughts you can’t talk about without feeling shame, the behaviors to cope you can’t stop even though they don’t make you feel any better.

Most therapists who say they treat OCD use general anxiety techniques — which don’t actually work for OCD and can make you feel worse. We use ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention), the gold-standard evidence-based protocol. Gradually paced to help you unlearn behaviors you thought would be helpful but found out actually makes you feel worse. Danielle and Fidel lead our OCD work and have expert-level training.

• Pure-O — intrusive thoughts without visible behaviors
• ROCD — relationship OCD and the doubt loops that have probably sabotaged more relationships than you thought
• Harm OCD — the thoughts that scare you and don’t mean what they seem to mean
• Purity OCD — religious or moral OCD
• Contamination, checking, and visible compulsions

Disordered Eating — the food math.

Restriction. Binge cycles. The exercise that’s about earning food. The relationship with food and body. Learning that underneath all these feelings and behaviors, it isn’t as much about food as you originally thought.

Disordered eating doesn’t always look like a diagnosis. Sometimes it looks like wellness. Or discipline. Or “being good with yourself.” We work with all of it — the named eating disorders and the quieter patterns that hide behind health language. Inclusive, non-diet, body-respectful care.

• The food math — calorie counting, macros, the running tally
• Restriction and binge cycles
• Exercise that’s about earning food
• The messages you were given by your family that still take up mental space today
• Body-image patterns and the mirror conversations
• Recovery that doesn’t require getting “better” in someone else’s terms

Identity & Cultural — who am I vs. how do others see me?

Cultural identity. The post-achievement emptiness. The purposeful work of finding the version of you that lives underneath all the expectations.

For many of our clients, identity isn’t a side topic — it’s the through-line. The in-between of being a daughter and being yourself. The weight of parents’ sacrifices and the silent expectations you only just found out about. The question of what counts as success when “success” was someone else’s idea. We work with identity directly, not as something to integrate later.

• Cultural identity and the in-between of two worlds
• Why it’s actually a sign of growth that you are not the same person everyone always thinks of you as
• Post-achievement identity — who am I beyond my accomplishments?
• Code-switching and the cost of constant translation
• The version of you that exists when no one’s watching

Depression & Low Mood — you’re still doing everything that’s expected, but feel empty on the inside.

The slow-burn version. The days that feel slower. The conversations that require more energy than you have to give. The motivation that’s quietly disappeared. The “I’m fine” that hasn’t been true for a while.

Depression doesn’t always announce itself. Sometimes it’s not sadness — it’s flatness. Not always tears — just emptiness. Not always something you notice - others may point it out to you. We work with the version that doesn’t quite fit the clinical picture as well as the version that does. CBT for the cognitive patterns and behaviors to help you break the patterns. Patience while you figure out where it’s all coming from.

• Persistent low mood, low motivation, low energy
• The feeling that comes only when everything slows down and you have time to think
• High-functioning depression and the gap between how you look and how you feel
• The “off” you can’t quite name
• Grief that’s gone unnamed or unprocessed
• Existential depression and meaning loss

Burnout & Work Stress — the tank you can’t refill.

Maybe what you’ve been calling stress has the shape of burnout. The exhaustion that sleep doesn’t touch. The cynicism that wasn’t there a year ago. The work you’re still doing but somehow not really in anymore.

Burnout isn’t about working too hard — it’s about working hard in conditions your nervous system can’t sustain. We work on two layers at once: the systemic (the conditions that drained you, the boundaries you haven’t named yet) and the internal (the worth-equals-output equation that keeps it all running). Most clients recover from burnout inside the role that caused it. For the named everyday shapes burnout takes — from the Sunday-night dread to the promotion that didn’t fix it — see our Topics Index.

• The Sunday-night dread that’s been creeping earlier
• High-functioning burnout that hides behind achievement
• Caregiving burnout — parents, family, partners of people with chronic illness
• The promotion that didn’t fix it
• Cynicism that surprises you — about colleagues, the mission, yourself
• Rebuilding capacity without quitting the role

Life Transitions & Feeling Lost — the in-between.

Maybe what you’re in isn’t a crisis — it’s a transition. The career that looked perfect on LinkedIn. The version of you at 23 you can’t quite be anymore. The persistent question of am I in the wrong life?

Transitions are some of the hardest psychological work a person does, and one of the least named. The old self is dying, the new self is unformed, and the in-between has its own grief. We work existentially and through attachment — slowing it down, distinguishing anxiety from intuition from grief, and helping you tolerate the not-knowing long enough that something true gets to emerge. For the named shapes of feeling lost — career pivots, post-graduation drift, leaving a religion, falling out of love with a city — see our Topics Index.

• Career pivots and post-achievement emptiness
• Quarter-life and developmental thresholds
• Identity reconstruction after breakups, moves, becoming a parent
• Leaving religions or cultural systems you were raised in
• The vague sense you’re in the wrong life with no specific thing being wrong
• Decision paralysis on questions that used to feel obvious

Loneliness & Connection — the friendships that thinned.

Maybe what you’ve been calling “my friends are just busy” has another name. The friend group that scattered. The closeness that quietly thinned. The texts you don’t send.

Adult loneliness is rarely cinematic. It’s the quieter version — group chats that aren’t the same as being known, friendships that became scheduling-only, the question of who to call when something hard happens. We work with it on two layers: the internal beliefs about closeness and vulnerability that quietly run the show, and the small repeated practices of initiating, deepening, and protecting connection. Therapy itself becomes practice in being known. For the specific shapes loneliness takes — from the Sunday afternoons that arrive heavy to the difficulty making friends in adulthood — see our Topics Index.

• Group chats that feel loud and empty
• Friendships that became scheduling-only
• Post-college and post-move drift
• Difficulty making friends in adulthood without built-in structures
• Immigrant, first-generation, or culturally specific isolation
• Introvert loneliness — needing fewer relationships and needing those deeper

Our approach — the purposeful work.

Maybe therapy is the gradual work of becoming yourself. We don’t promise sudden transformation. We promise a steady, considered relationship with someone trained to listen and help you change the patterns.

At Align, the work is integrative. We weave CBT, attachment, EFT, EMDR, IFS, mindfulness, and existential therapy together based on what you actually need — not what we’re trained to sell. The first session is mostly about deciding whether to come back and establishing a plan to help you reach your goals. The next dozen are where the structured work happens.

CBT — practical, evidence-based.

For when the thoughts are running the show. CBT helps you separate thoughts, feelings and behaviors — finding the leverage points where small changes shift large patterns.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is the most-researched, most-evidence-based modality in therapy. It works particularly well for anxiety, depression, OCD, and chronic worry. At Align, we don’t use CBT as a worksheet — we use it as a conversation. For the neuroscience of how changing a thought changes the circuit that fires with it, see Why Therapy Works.

ACT — when everything else hasn’t worked, we teach you how to lean in.

Maybe what’s been calling itself “the problem” is the resistance to it. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy works with what’s already here.

ACT is about clarifying what you value, then helping you increase your tolerance for the hard feelings that come up. It’s not about eliminating anxiety, sadness, or doubt — it’s about loosening their grip so you can act anyway. Especially useful for clients whose suffering has the texture of self-criticism, perfectionism, or chronic avoidance.

DBT — structure and kindness, together.

For when emotions feel too big to manage and relationships feel impossibly hard. Practical, skill-based, surprisingly warm.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy combines the cognitive work of CBT with four skill sets: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. Originally developed for intense, hard-to-regulate emotions and self-harm, it now treats anxiety, depression, eating concerns, and emotion dysregulation more broadly. Most clients describe DBT as the modality that finally gave them tools they can actually use between sessions.

Exposure & Response Prevention — the evidence-based way out of the loop.

For OCD and intrusive thoughts, the protocol that actually works. Carefully designed, gradually paced.

ERP is the gold-standard treatment for OCD. It works by gradually exposing you to the thoughts or situations that trigger compulsions while building the tolerance to not perform the behavior or avoidance that usually follows. Not pleasant in the moment, not magical, but research-supported and effective. Most clients see meaningful change in a few sessions. Danielle and Fidel lead our ERP work and have expert-level training.

Attachment-Based therapy — where it all started.

How you learned to be in relationship — long before language — is still influencing every relationship you’re in now. Attachment-based therapy works with that layer.

Most of what we call “patterns” started as attachment adaptations: ways you learned to stay safe, get loved, or avoid being too much. They worked back then. They cost you something now. Attachment-based therapy makes those patterns visible, names what they were protecting, and gives you room to build something different. For why a steady relationship can physically reshape these patterns, see Why Therapy Works.

Person-Centered — you already have the answers.

Sometimes you don’t need advice. You need to be heard so completely that you can finally hear yourself.

Person-centered therapy rests on a quietly radical idea: that you already carry what you need to grow, and the therapist’s job is to create the conditions that let it surface — genuine warmth, complete acceptance without judgment, and real empathy. The therapist doesn’t direct from above or hand you a diagnosis; they follow you, reflect you back to yourself, and trust your capacity to find your own way. Especially powerful for self-acceptance, self-understanding, and closing the gap between who you are and who you think you’re supposed to be. For why being fully heard physically changes the brain, see Why Therapy Works.

Psychodynamic — the past, still in the room.

The way you relate to people now was rehearsed a long time ago. Psychodynamic work brings those old scripts into the light.

Psychodynamic therapy explores how your earliest relationships — and the ways you learned to protect yourself inside them — still shape how you connect, react, and defend today. Much of it happens inside the relationship with your therapist: the patterns you bring to every relationship tend to show up there too, where they can finally be seen and understood instead of just repeated. The goal isn’t endless analysis of the past. It’s insight that loosens the grip of patterns you didn’t know you were running. For the neuroscience of how old relationships live in implicit memory, see Why Therapy Works.

Motivational Interviewing — for the part of you that’s not sure yet.

Change is rarely all-or-nothing. Usually one part of you wants it and another part isn’t ready — and that ambivalence is where the work begins, not where it stalls.

Motivational Interviewing meets you exactly where you are — no lectures, no pressure, no being talked into anything. Instead of arguing you toward change, we help you notice the gap between what you want for your life and what’s currently getting in the way, and let your own reasons for change come forward. It’s collaborative, not directive, and especially useful when you’re stuck between knowing something needs to shift and not feeling ready to shift it — around habits, substances, big decisions, or any change that part of you resists.

Emotion-Focused Therapy — the cycle you keep repeating.

EFT reaches for what’s beneath the surface emotion. The hurt under the anger. The fear under the criticism. The longing under the withdrawal.

EFT is rooted in attachment science and works particularly well for couples and for individuals navigating emotional dysregulation. We don’t try to talk you out of feelings. We help you communicate what you actually mean behind the criticism or shutting down that has become so common in your communication.

Internal Family Systems — all the parts of you, at the same time.

The version of you that wants to leave the relationship, the version that wants to stay, and the version that’s tired of being the one to decide. IFS treats them all as parts of you.

IFS frames the mind as composed of distinct “parts” — protectors, exiles, managers — each with their own internal logic and reason for being there. The work isn’t to silence any of them. It’s to get to know them, understand what they’re protecting, and let the calmer, wiser center (what IFS calls “Self”) lead. Especially helpful for clients with internal conflict, perfectionism, or attachment-trauma patterns.

Narrative therapy — retelling your story.

The story others tell about your life is not the same as your life. Narrative therapy helps you tell it differently.

Narrative therapy treats you as separate from your problems. Anxiety isn’t who you are — it’s something that you’ve had to deal with. Depression isn’t a flaw — it’s a period in your life that makes you feel unlike yourself. By shifting the focus and changing the perspective, clients often find it is easier to explain how they truly feel and blame themselves less. Particularly useful for identity work, life transitions, and clients who feel defined by others’ opinions of them.

Solution-Focused — for doubling down on what’s already working.

When the question isn’t why? — it’s what’s working, and how do we have more of it so we can narrow your focus?

Solution-focused therapy starts from a different premise than most: less interest in tracing problems back to their roots, more interest in what’s already going right and how to build on it. Noticing the exceptions — the times the problem is already smaller — and doing more of what’s quietly working. Good for clients in transitions, clients who are tired of insight without movement, and shorter-term goal-focused work. Often woven through other modalities rather than used alone.

EMDR — for what happened that might still be happening on some level.

For the events that should be in the past but still hijack the present. EMDR helps the nervous system file them where they belong while you learn how to cope.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is a gold-standard treatment for trauma — including the “small-t” traumas that didn’t seem big at the time but still shape how you respond now. The bilateral stimulation helps the brain process what it couldn’t fully before. Carefully paced and very structured. Always within your control. For how the eye movements actually update a stuck memory, see Why Therapy Works.

Mindfulness — the noticing between feeling and reaction.

Not the meditation app version. The clinical version: noticing what’s happening without immediately reacting. And the hardest part, becoming more comfortable with that pause.

Mindfulness in therapy isn’t a relaxation technique — it’s a way of relating to your own experience that creates a small but useful pause between feeling and reaction. We use it specifically: for anxiety, for emotion regulation, for getting unstuck from rumination. Often integrated through other modalities (CBT, ACT, DBT, IFS) rather than treated as the work itself. For why that pause matters neurologically, see Why Therapy Works.

Existential therapy — for the why that exists underneath everything else.

Meaning. Freedom. Identity. Morality. The questions that don’t have immediate answers but help you make every decision in your life because you feel like you have a solid direction with milestones along the way.

Existential therapy works with the hardest questions that other people don’t quite know how to hold: When I set this boundary, am I being a bad person or selfish? Technically, I know the right answer but what will other people think? It’s not a immediate answers — it’s framing your questions in the proper context that places you at the center. Our therapists weave existential framing into work on people-pleasing, identity, transitions, grief, and the slow recognition that you are in charge of your own life.

Fees & Insurance.

Online therapy at Align runs $200 per individual session and $250 per couple/family session. We’re out-of-network with all insurance plans — but most plans reimburse out-of-network sessions.

We provide a superbill after each session that you can submit to your insurance for reimbursement. With clients who are unsure if their insurance will reimburse, we schedule an initial session and let you pause anytime until you hear back from your insurance. Many of our clients find that out-of-network reimbursement brings their actual cost close to in-network rates. A limited number of sliding-scale spots are available for clients — just ask in the free consultation.

What’s included

• 50-minute sessions
• Frequency of your choice (twice per week, weekly, biweekly, monthly)
• You start or stop whenever you want, no long-term commitments
• HIPAA-compliant video platform and secure messaging
• Same therapist every week — no rotation
• Brief between-session check-ins when needed
• A superbill for out-of-network reimbursement

Frequently asked questions.

The questions people most often ask before booking a consultation. If yours isn’t here, text/call/email us — we’ll answer it directly.

How do I know if you’re the right practice for me?

The clearest answer comes from the free consultation. You can talk to whoever you feel is the best fit for 15 minutes, you’ll get a feel for personality and approach, and we’ll both have enough information to say yes or no. If we’re not the right fit, we’ll happily refer you to someone who is.

How long does therapy take?

Our goal is for you to walk away from the first session with at least clarity on your issues and one new way to cope with your issues. Most clients begin to notice meaningful lasting change in a few sessions. Long-term change — the kind where you don’t go back to the old pattern — typically takes consistent work, but you can feel the benefits along the way, not just at the very end. We don’t believe in artificially short or artificially long timelines, you choose when you want to start, stop, pause, go to a higher or lower frequency.

Do you do in-person sessions?

No. We’re fully online, available across California. Online therapy is a deliberate choice, not a constraint — skip the commute, schedule or reschedule flexibly around your other commitments, meet us from wherever you feel comfortable. Many clients find they’re more honest in their own space than in a clinical office.

Can I switch therapists if it’s not working?

Yes, any time. Try talking about the not-working with your current therapist first — most issues can be addressed openly. But if you still feel it’s just not the right fit, you can switch with no notice required. Jasmeet is the best person to make a recommendation based on your needs.

What if I’m in crisis?

Our practice isn’t designed for active crisis support. If you’re in immediate danger, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) or go to your nearest emergency room. We’ll coordinate ongoing care with you once you’re out of the active crisis and need help.

Do you accept teenagers?

No, we only work with clients 18 and older. We’re particularly well-suited to college-age clients and young adults navigating the early in-between years.

Do you prescribe medication?

No — therapists don’t prescribe. That’s the role of a psychiatrist or psychiatric nurse practitioner. We work alongside prescribers when medication is part of a client’s care, and we can refer you to psychiatrists we trust.