About Laura
Laura Shaw is a licensed marriage and family therapist practicing in California with 24 years of experience. She focuses on helping people manage stress and anxiety, find their footing after loss, and build greater self-esteem and confidence.
Background and approach
Her work emphasizes clear, practical steps and steady support for everyday challenges. Her approach centers on listening first and responding to each person's needs.
She creates a calm space where people can talk through painful feelings and figure out what matters most to them. Conversations move at a pace that feels comfortable, with attention to real-life concerns like parenting strain and caregiver stress.
Laura draws on Client-Centered Therapy to follow clients' priorities and help them feel seen. She also uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to identify unhelpful thoughts and try new behaviors that reduce anxiety and improve mood.
Those methods are used together to address issues such as attachment difficulties, communication problems, and the fallout of divorce and separation. Sessions often focus on practical skills for coping with life changes, working through guilt and shame, and exploring questions about life purpose and self-love.
She also helps people process post-traumatic stress and grief in ways that honor their experience. The goal is steady progress, not quick fixes.
Laura aims to empower people to make thoughtful changes and to practice healthier patterns between sessions. Her style is warm, direct, and encouraging, with an emphasis on tools you can use in daily life.
Therapeutic approaches and online care
Client-Centered Therapy emphasizes listening and following each person's priorities. It focuses on empathy and acceptance so people can explore feelings, build self-awareness, and decide what changes matter most. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at how thoughts affect feelings and actions. It teaches simple exercises to test unhelpful thoughts and try new behaviors that reduce anxiety and lift mood.Choosing the right approach is part of the process. The therapist will work together with the client to select methods that match goals, needs, and preferences. That collaborative planning might mean trying one approach for a while and adjusting based on what helps most.
Online therapy offers practical flexibility. Video calls let conversations feel face-to-face while fitting into busy days. Phone sessions can be useful when bandwidth is limited or when someone prefers not to be on camera. Live chat or text-based messaging supports shorter check-ins, ongoing coaching, or quick tool practice between longer sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into family schedules, work breaks, or times when travel is difficult.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Grief
- Parenting issues
Also works with
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 24 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English