Marla Gentile, LPC, LPCC

Marla Gentile is a licensed professional counselor with a long clinical career. She brings 40 years of experience helping people who struggle with stress, anxiety, trauma and abuse, grief, and major life changes. Marla emphasizes the client as the expert in their own story and encourages small steps toward lasting change.

Her work centers on listening first and creating space for what matters to each person. She helps clients name challenges, notice strengths, and try practical ways to feel steadier day to day. She also addresses compassion fatigue and issues tied to relationships, intimacy, and self‑esteem.

Marla integrates approaches that pay attention to how relationships and early experiences shape current patterns. She uses mindfulness and body‑aware techniques to help people manage overwhelming feelings. When trauma is part of the history, she includes methods designed to reduce the intensity of painful memories.

Sessions are geared toward clear, doable goals. Marla helps people sort priorities, improve communication, and rebuild a sense of control after loss or upheaval. She also supports those facing career questions, caregiver stress, and life purpose concerns.

She practices in California and holds LPC and LPCC credentials. Marla welcomes people who want a steady, compassionate clinician to walk with them through difficult transitions. If you are ready to try therapy, she encourages the first step toward change.

How her approaches translate to online work

Marla commonly uses Attachment‑Based Therapy to look at how early relationships shape current patterns and how new ways of relating can feel safer. This approach can help with intimacy issues, attachment concerns, and relationship wounds. She also uses Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, a trauma‑focused method that helps reduce the emotional intensity of painful memories and can be useful when trauma and abuse are part of someone’s history.

Finding the right approach is a collaborative process. Marla works with each person to identify their goals, preferences, and what feels most tolerable in the moment. Together they choose methods and pace that fit the client's needs rather than insisting on a single technique.

If you are considering online therapy, check the current session options before booking since formats were not specified in the biography. Online work can make it easier to fit sessions into a busy life, allow shorter check‑ins when schedules are tight, and remove travel time. Many people find that therapeutic techniques like mindfulness, attachment‑focused conversations, and trauma processing can be adapted to remote sessions when the therapist and client agree on how to proceed.