Anke Kalaiah
Compassionate, practical therapy for family life
- Credentials
- LMFT
- Experience
- 15 years
- Licensed in
- California
- Languages
- English, German
- Format
- Online sessions
About Anke
Anke Kalaiah is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who focuses on practical help for people feeling overwhelmed by stress, anxiety, relationship strain, grief, addiction, or major life changes. She writes simply and listens closely. Sessions aim to clarify immediate problems, build coping skills, and set small goals that fit daily life.
Anke uses clear tools from several approaches so clients can try what works. She treats trauma and abuse, domestic violence, sexual abuse, family and marital conflict, divorce and coparenting issues, blended family challenges, and parenting concerns.
Background and approach
Her background includes work across many clinical settings with a wide range of people from diverse cultural backgrounds. She trained in Germany, earning a bachelor degree in German and social psychology at Ruhr University in Bochum, and completed a master degree in counseling psychology at Santa Clara University in California in 2011.
She became a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in 2014 and brings 15 years of overall experience to her work. Anke often combines client-centered listening with skills-based methods. She helps people notice unhelpful thoughts, try new behaviors, and practice emotion regulation and mindfulness.
The goal is to help clients feel more able to handle daily demands and reconnect with what matters to them. Sessions are offered in English and German and conducted online in California. The process begins with a brief match questionnaire and scheduling, then moves into collaborative planning and practical steps for change.
How specific approaches work in online care
Client-centered therapy begins by following the client's lead and building a trusting, respectful connection. It focuses on listening, reflecting, and helping clients decide what matters most to work on, which can be useful for sorting family or relationship problems.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at links between thoughts, feelings, and actions. It helps people notice unhelpful thinking, test new ideas, and try small behavior changes to reduce anxiety or low mood.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy, DBT, teaches clear skills in mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. Those skills are practical tools for handling intense emotions and improving communication in relationships.
Choosing the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will talk with each person about goals, preferences, and what has or hasn't helped before. From there she suggests methods to try and adjusts the plan based on progress and feedback.
Online therapy makes these approaches accessible through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. This flexibility lets people fit therapy around work, caregiving, and busy schedules. It also makes it easier to keep practicing skills between sessions and to check in quickly when challenges come up.
Client-Centered Therapy
The direction comes from you rather than from a set programme. The therapist offers a warm, non-judgemental space to think out loud and work at your own pace. Online, this rests on the relationship rather than on being in the same room.
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.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Immigration issues
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Parenting issues
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 15 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English, German
Next step
Talk to Anke
- Takes a few minutes
- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point