About Carol
Carol Johnson is a licensed marriage and family therapist in California with 27 years of experience. She focuses on relationship struggles, grief, low self-esteem, and navigating major life changes.
Background and approach
Her style is straightforward and compassionate, aimed at helping people move forward when life feels stuck. She spent two decades directing a bereavement program after the death of her young husband, and that work shapes how she supports people through loss.
Carol combines talk therapy with creative options for those who prefer expressive work, drawing on her background in art therapy where helpful. In sessions she uses practical tools from cognitive behavioral approaches to identify unhelpful thoughts and develop new coping skills.
Client-centered methods guide the pace and priorities of therapy, so people set the goals and Carol follows their lead. She also integrates elements of the Gottman Method for people who want focused work on communication and relationship patterns.
Carol helps people handle a wide range of concerns including blended family issues, caregiver stress, cancer-related challenges, postpartum depression, and trauma symptoms. She also supports those facing divorce, isolation, life-purpose questions, and end-of-life matters.
Her approach emphasizes small, actionable steps. Conversations aim to clarify what matters most, reduce overwhelming feelings, and build confidence.
The first session generally looks at what brought someone in now and what a reasonable next step might be.
How Carol’s Approaches Work Online
Client-centered therapy focuses on listening and following the person’s priorities. It gives space for someone to tell their story and set goals while the therapist offers steady support and reflection.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at how thoughts affect feelings and behavior. It teaches simple exercises to test unhelpful thoughts and practice new coping skills for anxiety, low mood, or stress.
The Gottman Method concentrates on communication and interaction patterns in relationships. It provides concrete exercises to improve listening, reduce criticism, and rebuild connection for people wanting targeted relationship work.
Choosing the right approach is part of the work together. Carol will discuss options and tailor methods to the client's needs, goals, and preferences. That decision is collaborative and can change as progress is made.
Online sessions offer practical flexibility. Video calls are useful for full conversations with visual cues, phone sessions work when bandwidth is limited or a hands-free option is needed, and live chat or text messaging suit quick check-ins or brief coaching between sessions. These formats make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life and to continue work when in-person meetings are not possible.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Relationship issues
- Grief
- Self esteem
Also works with
- Blended family issues
- Cancer
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Divorce and separation
- Forgiveness
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Women's issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 27 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English