Our Treatment Modalities
Therapia is a depth-oriented practice. We are less interested in quick fixes than in understanding where they come from, so our work is rooted in psychodynamic, attachment-based, and relational approaches that look at the patterns underneath what brings you in.
Each clinician brings their own training, so below you will find the modalities we use and who on our team practices each one. Every treatment plan is tailored to you, and skills-based tools are woven in when they help, never as a substitute for the deeper work.
In person in Beverly Hills or online across California · In-network with Cigna and UnitedHealthcare/Optum
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
Psychodynamic therapy is the foundation of how we work. It starts from the idea that much of what drives our feelings, relationships, and choices sits outside our awareness, shaped by early experiences and the relationships we grew up in. The patterns that hurt us now usually made sense once, as ways of staying safe or staying connected.
Together, we slow down and notice what repeats: in your relationships, in how you treat yourself, and in the room with your therapist. As those patterns become visible, they become choices. The relationship with your therapist is a central part of the work, a place to experience something different rather than only talk about it.
Clinicians who use this: Dr. Gözde Gökozan, Mo Mokgobu, Liz Doyle, Melodi Gencosmanoglu
Parts Work: IFS & Schema Therapy
We all have different sides of ourselves: a part that pushes us to keep going, a part that feels small or scared, a critic that never lets up. Parts-based therapies help you get to know these inner voices with curiosity instead of judgment.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) sees every part as trying to protect you, and helps you lead from a calm, compassionate core Self so protective parts can relax and wounded parts can heal.
Schema Therapy looks at the lifelong patterns, or schemas, that formed when early needs for safety, connection, or acceptance went unmet, and the “modes” we shift into to cope. Through imagery, reflection, and a warm, supportive relationship, it strengthens your Healthy Adult self so you can meet those needs now.
Clinicians who use this: Mo Mokgobu
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
EMDR is an evidence-based therapy for trauma. Painful memories can stay stuck in the nervous system, so that something from years ago still feels like it is happening now. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation, such as guided eye movements or tapping, while you briefly hold a memory in mind, which helps the brain reprocess it.
Over time, the memory loses its emotional charge and starts to feel like part of the past. Beliefs attached to it, like “I am not safe” or “It was my fault,” often shift on their own. We always begin by building stability and resources, and you stay in control of the pace throughout.
Clinicians who use this: Dr. Gözde Gökozan
Play Therapy
Children often show us what they feel through play long before they can put it into words. In play therapy, children use toys, art, sand, and stories to explore what is on their mind at their own pace, while the therapist notices the themes and feelings that come up and responds in ways that help the child feel understood.
Because play is a child’s natural language, it offers a safe way to work through grief, illness in the family, anxiety, big changes at home, and frightening experiences. We meet with parents regularly so you understand what we are seeing and how to support your child between sessions.
Clinicians who use this: Dr. Gözde Gökozan
Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT)
PCIT is an evidence-based treatment for young children, roughly ages 2 to 7, with challenging behavior. Rather than the therapist working with your child alone, you and your child play together while the therapist coaches you live, usually through an earpiece, so you practice new responses in the moment.
The first phase strengthens warmth and connection between you. The second gives you a calm, consistent approach to limits and follow-through. Progress is measured along the way, and most families complete PCIT in about 12 to 20 sessions.
Clinicians who use this: Dr. Gözde Gökozan
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is an evidence-based approach to couples and family therapy grounded in attachment science. EFT sees recurring conflict as a cycle that both partners get caught in, rather than a problem with either person. One partner may pursue while the other withdraws, and each move makes sense once you understand the need underneath it: to feel close, safe, valued, and understood.
In EFT, your therapist helps you slow the cycle down, name the emotions and fears driving it, and practice new ways of reaching for each other. As partners become more emotionally responsive, conflict becomes easier to repair, and trust and closeness can grow. We use EFT with couples of all identities and relationship structures, and with families who want to strengthen their bonds.
Clinicians who use this: Dr. Gözde Gökozan, Liz Doyle, Melodi Gencosmanoglu
Attachment-Based Therapy
Our earliest relationships teach us what to expect from closeness: whether others will be there when we need them, and what we have to do to stay connected. Those lessons often carry into adult relationships, parenting, and the way we treat ourselves, long after the circumstances that shaped them have changed.
Attachment-based therapy looks at these patterns with compassion and curiosity. The therapeutic relationship itself becomes a secure base, a place to feel understood and to practice new ways of relating. Over time, many people find they can trust, ask for what they need, and repair after conflict in ways that once felt out of reach.
Clinicians who use this: Dr. Gözde Gökozan, Liz Doyle
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people relate differently to difficult thoughts and feelings, rather than trying to make them disappear. Much of our suffering comes from the struggle to control what we cannot: pushing away painful emotions, arguing with anxious thoughts, or avoiding anything that might hurt. That struggle often ends up making our lives smaller.
ACT combines mindfulness and acceptance with a clear focus on values, the things that matter most to you. Clients learn to notice thoughts without being ruled by them, make room for hard emotions, and take meaningful steps forward even when discomfort comes along. ACT is helpful for anxiety, OCD, chronic illness and pain, grief, burnout, and life transitions.
Clinicians who use this: Liz Doyle, Melodi Gencosmanoglu
Existential Therapy
Existential therapy makes room for the big questions that often surface during illness, loss, and major life changes: what gives life meaning, how to live with uncertainty and mortality, and who you want to be. Rather than treating these questions as symptoms, we treat them as part of being human.
Existential work helps you look honestly at your circumstances, including the parts you cannot change, and find freedom and choice within them. It is especially supportive for people facing a serious diagnosis, grieving, entering retirement or a new chapter, or sensing that the life they are living no longer fits.
Clinicians who use this: Liz Doyle
Relational Gestalt Therapy
Relational Gestalt therapy focuses on present-moment experience and the relationships we live within. Rather than only talking about problems, clients are invited to notice what is happening right now: in their body, in their emotions, and in the conversation with their therapist. The relationship between client and therapist becomes a place to explore patterns of connection in real time, with curiosity rather than judgement.
It also pays close attention to context, including family, culture, and community, recognizing that we are shaped by the people and environments around us. Through this awareness, clients can discover new choices in how they respond to themselves and to others.
Clinicians who use this: Melodi Gencosmanoglu, Liz Doyle
Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)
ERP is the most established evidence-based treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and it also helps with health anxiety, phobias, and other anxiety concerns. OCD and anxiety are often kept going by the very things we do to get relief: checking, seeking reassurance, avoiding, or mentally reviewing. Those behaviors calm anxiety in the short term but teach the brain that the fear was real.
In ERP, you and your therapist build a plan to gradually approach the thoughts and situations that trigger distress while practicing not responding with the compulsion. Exposures start with what feels manageable, and you decide the pace. Over time, the brain learns that anxiety rises and falls on its own, and the compulsions lose their hold. At Therapia, ERP is held within a relational, psychodynamic understanding of where the anxiety comes from.
Clinicians who use this: Melodi Gencosmanoglu
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT looks at how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors influence one another, and offers practical tools for changing the patterns that keep distress going. At Therapia, CBT is not a stand-alone worksheet approach. We weave its skills into deeper, relational work when they are useful, especially for anxiety, panic, and low mood.
That might mean learning to notice and question anxious predictions, gradually facing situations you have been avoiding, or building routines that support your mood, alongside exploring where those patterns came from in the first place.
Clinicians who use this: Mo Mokgobu, Melodi Gencosmanoglu