A Trauma Therapist Who Truly Gets It

I'm Claudia Bates, a licensed marriage and family therapist who specializes in complex trauma. I earned my Masters of Arts in Clinical Psychology with a focus in trauma from Antioch University Los Angeles in 2017, and trained at Beit T'Shuvah, a residential addiction treatment center—giving me deep experience holding addiction, family secrets, and layered wounds that most people have spent a lifetime hiding.

Trauma is the center of my work. Whether it's childhood wounds that shaped how you see yourself, relational patterns you can't seem to break, or the quiet weight of experiences you've never fully processed—I help people move through what feels impossible, safely and at their own pace.

I also bring something most trauma therapists don't: a former life as a writer, producer, and filmmaker. I've lived inside the creative world—the auditions, the rejection, the silence after sending your work into the void. That lived experience means I understand the specific ways trauma shows up for creative people: perfectionism that never quiets down, a gnawing sense that success still won't make you feel okay, and the exhaustion of performing "fine" while falling apart inside.

I help brave, creative people move from stuckness to flow—by healing lifelong trauma, breaking family patterns, and alchemizing pain into personal power.