Portia Anderson
Compassionate care for life and relationships
- Credentials
- LMFT
- Experience
- 19 years
- Licensed in
- California
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About Portia
Portia Anderson is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with 19 years of clinical experience. She works with people who are feeling overwhelmed by stress, anxiety, relationship difficulties, trauma, depression, addiction, and other life changes. She focuses on practical ways to improve day-to-day coping and rebuild connections that matter.
In sessions she draws on several approaches to tailor care to each person. Portia blends Attachment-Based ideas with cognitive behavioral tools and dialectical behavior techniques to help clients notice patterns, change distressing thoughts, and manage intense emotions.
Background and approach
She also uses narrative and psychodynamic perspectives to understand how past experiences shape current reactions. Portia brings a trauma-informed lens and attention to social factors such as racism, gender, and LGBT concerns. She also offers support around family of origin issues, codependency, adoption and foster care matters, caregiver stress, and substance use and recovery.
Her work often addresses intimacy, communication problems, and challenges tied to major life transitions. Portia holds a California Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist credential - CA LMFT 113890 - and practices in California. Sessions can include video calls, phone appointments, live chat, or text messaging depending on what fits a person’s needs.
She does not work with international clients and offers services in English. People who choose her can expect a collaborative process that focuses on practical skills and deeper exploration as needed. Portia aims to help people build healthier patterns and find clearer direction during difficult times.
How therapeutic approaches inform online care
Portia commonly draws on attachment-based work and cognitive behavioral therapy in online sessions. Attachment-based therapy looks at how early relationships shape current patterns and helps people build more supported ways of connecting. Cognitive behavioral therapy focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and trying small behavior changes to reduce anxiety and depression.She also uses dialectical behavior therapy skills when emotion regulation is a concern. DBT offers concrete tools for managing intense feelings, tolerating distress, and improving communication. These approaches are selected and combined based on each person’s situation rather than applied the same way to everyone.
Finding the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist discusses goals, preferences, and what has or hasn’t helped in the past. That collaborative conversation guides whether sessions emphasize skills training, narrative and exploration, or both.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging, which can make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life. These options allow for flexible scheduling, shorter check-ins when useful, and continued support between longer sessions. A mix of real-time conversation and messaging can be tailored to each person’s needs.
Attachment-Based Therapy
Looks at how early bonds shaped what you expect from closeness, and how that plays out now with a partner, a parent, or your own children.
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
- Trauma and abuse
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- Adoption and foster care
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Paranoia
- Post-traumatic stress
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 19 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English
Next step
Talk to Portia
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- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point