Chelsea Heller

Chelsea Heller is a licensed marriage and family therapist practicing in California who approaches therapy with a warm, person-centered orientation. She believes that everyone can benefit from processing life events and learning more about themselves, and she aims to create a therapeutic relationship that meets each person where they are so clients can move through their own process of self-discovery.

Before becoming a therapist, Chelsea spent nine years working as a social worker for Child Protective Services, supporting children and families affected by foster care and adoption. That background gives her particular knowledge of adoption-related issues, attachment, and identity concerns. She also has experience treating depression, anxiety, parenting and blended-family challenges, teen concerns, grief and loss, trauma and abuse, crisis situations, and adjustment difficulties.

Chelsea’s clinical work has included time in an in-patient psychiatric hospital, where she helped stabilize individuals on a short-term basis for conditions such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, depression, anxiety, addiction, co-occurring disorders, suicidal ideation, self-injurious behavior, and stress-triggered psychotic episodes. In that setting she also worked with families to explain diagnoses and suggest ways to support their loved ones.

More recently Chelsea transitioned into the education sector as a school psychologist. In that role she conducts psychoeducational assessments to identify autism, intellectual disabilities, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and learning disabilities, and she uses those assessments to inform individualized education plans. She also performs Educationally Related Mental Health Service assessments and provides counseling for students with higher mental health needs.

Chelsea has a sustained commitment to serving the LGBTQ community. As a social worker she spent part of her practice working exclusively with LGBTQ parents and children, and in the school setting she completed doctoral research focused on LGBTQ student needs and facilitated a Gay Straight Alliance club to support LGBTQ youth and allies.

Her therapeutic approach is eclectic, grounded primarily in humanistic, person-centered principles that emphasize empathy and collaboration. She also integrates techniques from evidence-based modalities such as cognitive behavioral therapy, solution-focused therapy, motivational interviewing, and psychodynamic approaches. Chelsea frames her role as a therapist not as someone who tells clients what to do, but as an empathic, nonjudgmental guide who helps people identify their own choices and goals at their own pace.

Chelsea has five years of experience providing therapy services. Her formal training includes a Bachelor of Arts in Social Science from California State University San Marcos; certificates in Parent Education and Training from the University of California, Los Angeles and in Special Education Advocacy from the University of San Diego; a Master of Science in Research Psychology from the University of Phoenix; and a Master of Arts in Counseling with a focus on marriage and family therapy from Mount Saint Marys College. She also holds a Pupil Personnel Services credential in School Psychology from La Sierra University and is completing a Doctor of Education in Educational Psychology and Mental Health at La Sierra University. She is licensed by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences as a marriage and family therapist, license number 116834.

Chelsea recognizes how difficult it can be to share intimate details with someone whose personal life you do not know, and she is humbled by the opportunity to support individuals during vulnerable times.