About Sharmaine
Sharmaine Whitten is a licensed marriage and family therapist who focuses on helping people manage stress, anxiety, grief, and depression. She writes and listens in a straightforward way so parents and busy adults can talk about what matters most.
Background and approach
She aims to make early conversations feel manageable and practical. In sessions she uses clear, goal-oriented methods to address relationship struggles and life changes.
She adapts the plan to a person’s needs and pace, and pays attention to communication problems, divorce and separation, and issues around forgiveness and guilt. She also supports people facing panic attacks, pregnancy and childbirth transitions, and questions about life purpose and self-love.
Her work draws on tools from approaches like cognitive behavioral techniques and emotionally-focused methods to help people shift patterns that cause pain. She brings solution-focused ideas to build small, achievable steps.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) also informs conversations about values, meaning, and handling difficult feelings. With five years of clinical experience and licensure in California, she blends practical strategies with a compassionate style.
Sessions are conversational and aim to teach skills that carry into daily life. The focus is on progress that feels useful and realistic rather than perfect.
People who choose her often want straightforward guidance for coping and better ways to communicate. She works in English and frames treatment around the client’s goals and everyday realities.
Therapeutic approaches and online sessions that fit your life
Sharmaine draws on cognitive behavioral therapy and emotionally-focused therapy to guide online work. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and testing small behavior changes to reduce anxiety and depression. Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT) helps people notice and change patterns in close relationships so they can feel more connected and understood.Finding the right approach is part of the process. She uses a collaborative approach to choose methods that match a person's goals and preferences. Conversations help decide whether more skill-building, emotion work, or solution-focused steps will be most useful for the client’s current concerns.
Online sessions are offered by video call, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to make therapy flexible. Video sessions allow face-to-face conversation, phone calls can work when bandwidth is limited, and messaging or live chat can fit quick check-ins or shorter reflections. These options make it easier to schedule sessions around work, appointments, or childcare while keeping the focus on practical change and steady progress.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Grief
Also works with
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 5 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English