Andrea McLellan
Calm, practical therapy for everyday challenges
- Credentials
- LMFT
- Experience
- 14 years
- Licensed in
- California
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About Andrea
Andrea McLellan is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 14 years of experience in California. She uses practical, goal-focused methods to help people manage stress, anxiety, depression, and relationship concerns. Andrea prefers straightforward work that helps people notice patterns and try small changes that make a real difference over time.
She combines Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and solution-focused techniques to set clear, realistic goals and reduce uncomfortable symptoms. Andrea also draws on psychodynamic and narrative ideas to look at how past experiences shape current feelings and behaviors.
Background and approach
Motivational interviewing helps when someone needs to find reasons to change and keep moving forward. Her background includes teaching psychology at the university level and providing forensic consultation related to sexual assault and child abuse cases. Those roles have sharpened her attention to how family systems and past trauma influence day-to-day functioning.
She routinely considers family history and long-term patterns when forming a plan with someone. Andrea emphasizes awareness, responsibility, courage, and forgiveness as parts of recovery. Sessions focus on practical steps, clear goals, and skills people can use outside therapy.
She also speaks directly to first responders and others exposed to others' suffering, offering ways to process acute or post-traumatic stress reactions. Outside of work she enjoys nature activities like hiking, bird-watching, and camping. Her approach is plainspoken and focused on helping people move toward more stable emotional health.
Online approaches that match your needs
Andrea often uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and testing small behavior changes to reduce anxiety, low mood, and sleep or eating problems. CBT gives concrete tools people can practice between sessions.She also uses Dialectical Behavior Therapy skills when emotion regulation and distress tolerance are needed. DBT techniques teach specific coping skills for managing intense feelings and improving communication. Motivational Interviewing is used when someone needs support finding internal motivation to change, especially around addiction or habit shifts.
Choosing the right approach is part of the work. Andrea collaborates with each person to pick methods that fit their goals, values, and daily life. She checks in and adjusts the plan over time so sessions stay useful and realistic.
Online formats offered include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. These options allow for flexible scheduling and multiple ways to connect depending on what feels most practical. Many people find that remote work makes it easier to use skills during real-life moments and to keep therapy consistent despite busy schedules.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT looks at the link between what you think, how you feel, and what you do. You work on noticing unhelpful patterns and practising steadier responses. It suits online sessions well, because much of the work happens between appointments and can be talked through from anywhere.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Concrete skills for riding out strong emotion, tolerating distress, and handling relationships without things escalating. The skills are practised in daily life, so between-session support by message or phone fits naturally.
Motivational Interviewing
A way of working through mixed feelings about change without being pushed. The therapist helps you weigh things up and find your own reasons, which often makes a difficult decision feel less stuck.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Parenting issues
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Trichotillomania
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 14 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English
Next step
Talk to Andrea
- Takes a few minutes
- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point