Chelsea Heller
Partnering with families to find practical paths forward
- Credentials
- LMFT
- Experience
- 5 years
- Licensed in
- California
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About Chelsea
Chelsea Heller is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) practicing in California who focuses on family and parenting concerns among other areas. She speaks plainly with parents and caregivers and aims to create a space where people feel heard. Her background includes hands-on work with children, teens, and families affected by foster care and adoption.
Chelsea draws on that experience when addressing attachment, identity, and blended-family issues. Before becoming an LMFT, Chelsea spent nine years as a social worker for Child Protective Services.
Background and approach
She also worked in an in-patient psychiatric hospital where she supported people through crises, mood disorders, and acute episodes while helping families understand diagnoses. Those roles shaped how she supports people facing grief, trauma, depression, anxiety, and anger. More recently she has worked in school settings as a school psychologist, performing psychoeducational assessments and helping develop education plans.
That work informs her approach to ADHD, learning differences, and student mental health needs. She has also focused part of her practice on LGBTQ people and families, including work with LGBTQ parents, students, and Gay Straight Alliance programming. Chelsea uses an eclectic, person-centered foundation and commonly draws from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Solution-Focused Therapy, and Motivational Interviewing.
In sessions she partners with clients to set goals and move at a pace that feels right for the family. Her training and varied roles give practical tools for parenting, behavior concerns, attachment work, and coping with life changes. She holds the California LMFT license number CA LMFT 116834 and has five years of formal experience as a licensed clinician.
Chelsea combines direct child welfare and hospital experience with school-based assessment work to support families through transitions and stressful periods.
Therapeutic approaches and how they fit online
Client-Centered Therapy emphasizes meeting clients where they are and following their pace; it focuses on listening, empathy, and supporting families as they make their own choices. This approach helps when parents or children need a steady, validating space to talk through concerns. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at the links between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and uses practical strategies to change unhelpful patterns. CBT can be useful for anxiety, depression, and behavior changes that parents want to address.Choosing the right approach often happens together. Chelsea will discuss goals, preferences, and specific family needs and then recommend techniques or a mix of methods. The work is collaborative and can change over time as progress is made or challenges shift.
Online therapy offers options that fit busy family schedules. Video calls allow face-to-face conversations from home, phone sessions remove barriers around cameras, and live chat or text-based messaging can provide short, flexible check-ins between sessions. These formats make it easier to access consistent support and try therapeutic tools in day-to-day life.
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.
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
Also works with
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Parenting issues
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Social anxiety and phobia
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 5 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English
Next step
Talk to Chelsea
- Takes a few minutes
- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point