5 Highly Recommended Los Angeles Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Specialis
You're seeking more than temporary relief. Perhaps you've tried self-help strategies that offered short-term solutions but left you wondering why the same patterns keep resurfacing. You want practical tools to manage anxiety, gently challenge unhelpful thought patterns, or navigate life transitions—but you also sense there's something deeper at play. You're drawn to understanding not just what to change, but why these patterns exist in the first place.
I'm Sharon Yu, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and the founder of Therapy on Fig, and I put this list together with that philosophy in mind. Below, you'll find five CBT specialists in the Los Angeles area—three of whom are therapists on my own team—whose work reflects a shared belief: that cognitive and behavioral shifts last when they're rooted in genuine self-understanding.
Meet our Los Angeles CBT therapists
Grace Chan, AMFT
If you’re a parent looking for support for your teenager, Grace stands out among local CBT providers for her rare combination of cultural fluency and creative flexibility: something you don’t often see with traditional, structured Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
She is trained in Brainspotting, a trauma-focused modality that pairs well with CBT, and she integrates creative arts therapies so sessions become a place for authentic, engaging exploration—not rigid, formulaic work.
As a first-generation immigrant and Third Culture Kid, Grace also understands firsthand how thought patterns get quietly wired by family systems, cultural scripts, and generational expectations. I wholeheartedly recommend Grace if you’re looking for evidence-based CBT that still honors your teen’s uniqueness.
Focus areas: BIPOC and immigrant experience, identity exploration, teens, families, religious trauma, couples, creatives, entertainment industry
Janelle Malak
If you and your partner are looking for CBT-informed couples therapy, Janelle is the standout choice on our team and in the LA area. She blends Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)—one of the most research-backed approaches for helping couples rebuild connection—with Trauma-Focused CBT, an approach that can help you and your partner go beyond the surface for deep, felt change.
Janelle also brings her own lived experience to couples work; she is a partner in a multiracial and neurodiverse relationship, and she changed careers and became a parent in her late 30s. This lends her a unique understanding of couples navigating differences and major life transitions that traditional, structured CBT may overlook.
I highly recommend Janelle if you and your partner are seeking the practicality of CBT to learn skills and shift patterns without missing out on therapy that’s human and honors the depth of your partnership.
Focus areas: Couples, new parents, entertainment industry, anxiety, creatives, LA transplants, burnout, career stress, life transitions
Gabriella Giorgio
If you're a neurodivergent woman who has spent years masking and is only now starting to understand why you're so exhausted, Gabriella is one of the best options in the area for CBT therapy that also honors your neurodivergence. She is late-discovered autistic herself, which means she's not just clinically trained in this work but personally familiar with what it actually feels like to go undiagnosed for years and to quietly build a life around performing normalcy.
Gabriella is trained in Trauma-Focused CBT, so her approach goes beyond simple behavior change and gets curious about the underlying beliefs that are often rooted in years of living in a society that isn’t built to celebrate different neurotypes.
As Gabriella’s supervisor, I’ve seen firsthand the authenticity and intention Gabriella brings to cognitive behavioral work, and I encourage you to consider her if you’re looking for depth-focused CBT that honors the neurodivergent experience.
Focus areas: Highly masked autistic women, neurodiverse couples, people-pleasing and self-criticism, motherhood
Other trusted local cognitive behavioral therapists
Michael Bauer
If you've ever felt that sitting and talking through your problems isn't quite how your mind works, or if you're a creative person who learns and moves through things better by making and doing, I recommend Michael’s practice.
He’s unique amongst CBT therapists in the Los Angeles area because he offers Cognitive Behavioral Art Therapy, an approach that integrates structured CBT techniques directly into art-making.
Now a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and a Registered Art Therapist, he draws on his background as a visual artist to expertly blend the rigor of evidence-based CBT with the creative expression the arts allow.
Focus areas: Creative individuals, anxiety, depression, OCD, teens, families
Jorgie Wu
Jorgie Wu is a former member of our team at Therapy on Fig, and one of the first therapists I'd recommend to someone navigating religious or faith deconstruction: a struggle that very few CBT therapists in the area are genuinely equipped to hold.
As a Taiwanese American therapist working specifically with BIPOC adults, she brings both cultural fluency and personal understanding to the kinds of burnout and anxiety that come from carrying cultural and family expectations for years while quietly questioning everything you were raised to believe.
Her approach blends CBT with IFS in the same depth-informed way we work here at Therapy on Fig, meaning the cognitive work is grounded in genuine self-understanding, not just behavioral fixes. I recommend her to anyone in the Los Angeles area who is in the middle of untangling what they actually believe from what they were told to believe.
Focus areas: Religious and faith deconstruction, burnout and anxiety, trauma, BIPOC adults, culturally affirming care
FAQs about cognitive behavioral therapy
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A traditional CBT session is often a structured conversation that may involve exercises, worksheets, and homework. At Therapy on Fig, we take a less rigid approach to CBT, so sessions with us are a collaborative process that blends reflection with practical skills. We might explore a thought pattern that keeps showing up in your life, look together at where it's rooted, and identify small but meaningful shifts you can actually carry with you.
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At Therapy on Fig, CBT is never practiced in isolation. It's woven into a framework rooted in Internal Family Systems, which means we don't just help you challenge unhelpful thoughts—we help you understand the parts of you that are generating them. Practical change and self-understanding aren't separate goals here; they're one and the same.
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Research shows that CBT can be effective for treating anxiety, ADHD, depression, eating disorders, and other challenges.
At our practice, our focus is less on specific diagnoses and more on the sorts of experiences that may lead someone to seek support—experiences that can show up as internal conflict, relationship challenges, or a turmoil you can’t quite put your finger on.
Our therapists work with clients navigating:
Anxiety and chronic overthinking
Trauma rooted in early life experiences
Self-criticism and perfectionism
Career burnout and major life transitions
Relationship and communication difficulties
Grief and adjustment to loss
Neurodivergence and burnout from masking
This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list, but a sample of what we can support you with. If you’re not sure whether our practice is right for you, connect with us for a free consultation.
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CBT tends to resonate with people who notice themselves caught in thought patterns or cycles of behavior that they don’t fully understand and can’t seem to shift on their own. If you value both insight and practical tools, and if you're someone who needs to know the why before a what feels worth trying, our approach to CBT may be especially right for you.
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Yes, many insurance plans do cover CBT. At Therapy on Fig, we accept both Cigna and Aetna, and for clients with PPO plans, we provide monthly superbill receipts to support out-of-network reimbursement. You can also use our benefits checker to explore your coverage before your first session.