WHERE HONESTY MEETS EMPATHY — AND REPAIR BEGINS
A space for both of you to be heard.
Therapist based in Marina del Rey, Online across California
Hi, I’m Isabella. I help couples who feel stuck in conflict, disconnection, or broken trust find their way back to closeness — through honesty, intimacy, and repair.
Love isn’t about winning or losing
—it’s about feeling safe together.
Here’s the bottom line:
When a simple question — about the dishes, or how you spend money—spirals into silence or another round of blame, it’s no wonder it feels like you’re on opposing teams. Love isn’t supposed to involve walking on eggshells or keeping score. I believe real intimacy comes from openness, repair, and choosing each other over and over again, even when it’s hard. I’ve seen it (and lived it) enough to know that even the deepest wounds can heal when you’re both willing to do the work.
In our sessions, my job isn’t to take sides or decide who’s right — it’s to help you both feel understood. Being trauma-informed means I pay attention to how past experiences, culture, privilege, and power shape the way you relate today.
Together, we’ll notice the stories and patterns you each carry — from your upbringing, your identities, and the relationships that came before. By bringing those influences into view, we create space for both of you to feel seen, heard, and understood.
When what’s been invisible becomes visible, healing begins. Your relationship starts to move toward safety, honesty, and deeper connection — the kind that grows from fairness, not sameness.
A trauma-focused and trauma-informed, deeply human approach to rebuilding trust & connection.
How we’ll work together
Therapy with me is…
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If you’re a couple in your first few years, decades into a marriage, part of the LGBTQ+ community, or in a non-traditional partnership — this work is for you.
And if you’re siblings, co-parents, business partners, or an adult child navigating boundaries with a parent — you’re welcome here, too.
No relationship exists in a vacuum. Whether your relationship is romantic, platonic, professional, or familial, we’ll make space for both of you — and focus on building a connection where you each have a voice and can be yourselves.
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We won’t just be analyzing what’s going wrong, we’ll be practicing new ways of connecting right there in the moment. When you start slipping into the same argument about who’s to blame or shutting down instead of speaking up, I’ll help you slow down and notice what’s happening inside.
I point out these moments in real time so you can start to see the cycle more clearly, then we practice trying a different way of handling it together. The goal isn’t just to leave with an understanding of why things play out the way they do, but also with a blueprint of how you can work through those difficult moments and stay on the same team. -
I’ll always meet you with compassion for what you’ve been through, but I’ll also be honest about the ways you’re shutting each other out. If I notice you brushing off your partner’s feelings, deflecting with blame, or avoiding the hard conversations altogether, I’ll call it out. This is never to shame you, but to show you there are other, more constructive ways of responding.
In other words, you’ll feel supported, but you’ll also be encouraged to expand your perspective and grow. This may feel uncomfortable at first, but that balance of care and truth is what makes lasting change possible.
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I’m not going to sit back and let you two go in circles, because if you could’ve solved this without any input, you would’ve done it by now. I’ve done this same work in my own life, and I know how hard it can be to talk to a total stranger about your most private issues. That’s why I show up as a real person in the room, willing to get in the mess with you instead of pretending to be a detached robot.
I truly consider us equals, so I won’t be handing down advice from above you. Instead, I’ll walk beside you as you do the deeply human work of learning to love each other better.
The Heart Behind the Work
Where the personal meets the professional
My story began in my own family.
Growing up in a home where emotions often ran high, I was often the one who tried to make peace — to bridge understanding when tensions rose. What started as a way to survive became a lifelong curiosity about how people love, fight, and find their way back to each other. Over time, that curiosity grew into purpose: helping couples and families rebuild safety, honesty, and connection — the kind I spent much of my life learning to create.
That same curiosity led me to study psychology and begin my early practice — work that deepened my understanding of how healing unfolds in connection.
An early chapter — a book I co-authored in Manila exploring women’s relationships and resilience, themes that still shape my work today.
That work expanded as I began to see how culture, privilege, and power quietly shape the way we relate — not just out in the world, but inside our own homes. The families we come from, the stories we’re taught about love and worth, the messages tied to class, race, gender, or voice — all of these can shift the balance between partners, even when love runs deep.
When those imbalances go unnamed, they keep repeating. But when they’re seen — when what’s been invisible comes into view — something shifts. Love starts to make room for truth. Real intimacy isn’t about sameness; it’s about fairness. Relationships grow stronger when both people have room to matter, to be heard, and to let each other’s truth reach them.
Before moving to California, I spent over a decade as a clinical counseling psychologist, working across hospitals, community programs, and my own private practice, Kid Whisperer, where I specialized in child-centered play therapy for children and families affected by trauma and loss. Those years taught me that healing doesn’t happen in isolation — it unfolds in relationship, through curiosity, care, and the slow rebuilding of trust.
Those early years shaped the way I listen now: with patience for the stories that take time to surface and respect for the courage it takes to tell them.
Much of what I’ve learned from my clients continues to guide me in my own life—in how I love, partner, parent, and repair. The work I do in the therapy room is the same work I practice at home: staying open, showing up, and finding my way back to connection when it falters.
Today, my work is grounded in Emotionally Focused Therapy, helping couples navigate disconnection and find their way back to safety and closeness. The years of sitting with families across cultures and stages of life continue to remind me that relationships aren’t about getting it right — they’re about staying in it, showing up, and learning to share the space between you. Because love only works when both voices matter.
Education & Credentials
The real learning happens in the therapy room — where real lives unfold.
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Education & Licensure
• Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist — LMFT #156415 (California)
Verify License — California Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA)
• Master of Arts in Marital and Family Therapy — Alliant International University, California School of Professional Psychology
• PhD Candidate in Clinical Counseling Psychology — De La Salle University, Manila
• Master of Arts in Psychological Services, Major in Professional Setting — Assumption Graduate School, Manila
• Bachelor of Science in Psychology — Assumption College, Manila -
Clinical Training & Associateship
• Southern California Counseling Center — Clinical training in couples, individual, and family therapy, integrating Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), Family Systems, IFS, EMDR, Attachment-Focused EMDR (AF-EMDR), and Trauma Resiliency (CRM & TRM) approaches within a community mental health setting
• Trauma Resolution Therapy Group — Associateship and advanced training in trauma-focused and trauma-informed care, EMDR, IFS, DBT, and relational therapy with couples and individuals
• Ossi Pace & Associates — Reviving Relationships — Associateship focused on Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), Gottman Method, and Relational Life Therapy (RLT) for couples, integrating trauma and attachment frameworksEmotionally Focused Therapy — EFT
• EFT Essentials and Externship
• EFT Core Training and Supervision toward Certification
• EFT Attachment Injury Resolution Model (AIRM)
• EFT Betrayal Trauma
• Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT Essentials)
• Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT Essentials)Couples & Relational Work
• The Gottman Method — Levels 1 & 2
• Relational Life Therapy (RLT)
• Integrative Sex & Couples Therapy
• Internal Attachment with Internal Family Systems (IFS)Trauma, Attachment & Relational Healing
• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
• Attachment-Focused EMDR (AF-EMDR)
• Internal Family Systems (IFS)
• Trauma and Community Resiliency Models (TRM & CRM)
• Family Systems Theory
• Feminist Therapy
• Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT)
• Child-Centered Play Therapy (CCPT)Mind, Emotion & Behavior — Clinical Specializations
• Personality Disorders — Treatment and Management
• Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
• ADHD Clinical Services Provider (ADHD-CCSP)
• Anger Management Certification
• Mindfulness-Based Therapy -
California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists — CAMFT
International Center for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy — ICEEFT
EFT Center of Los Angeles
Emdria International Association
IFS Institute Circle
Relational Life Institute
The Gottman Institute
American Association of Couples and Sex Therapists — AACAST