About Andrea
Dr. Andrea Shirley is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 27 years of experience. She helps people who are stressed, anxious, grieving, or struggling with relationship and intimacy issues.
She also supports clients facing LGBT concerns, sleep problems, anger, and major life changes. Dr. Shirley begins by listening closely to each person's story and priorities.
She works from the belief that people know their lives best and already carry strengths to draw on.
Background and approach
Sessions focus on practical next steps, clearer communication, and rebuilding confidence rather than long lists of labels. Her approach is flexible and grounded in collaboration. She uses client-centered methods to follow what matters most to the individual.
Narrative techniques help people rethink difficult events and separate themselves from painful labels. Solution-focused strategies are used to set short-term goals and track small wins. When trauma is a concern she brings trauma-focused work into the process to help people manage memories and reactions at a pace that feels manageable.
Dr. Shirley has worked across many issues over nearly three decades, including caregiving stress, chronic illness, adoption and foster-care questions, abandonment, and attachment-related problems. She also supports people navigating career shifts, commitment doubts, and communication breakdowns.
Her practice is based in California and sessions are conducted in English. She aims to make therapy approachable and practical for people who want tools to cope, heal, and move forward.
How her approaches translate to online therapy
Client-centered therapy puts the client's priorities first. Online sessions focus on listening, reflecting, and following the topics the person brings up. This approach helps when someone needs a respectful space to sort through feelings and decide what matters next.Narrative therapy helps people reframe painful events and separate themselves from negative labels. In remote sessions this often involves talking through stories, identifying unhelpful patterns, and testing new ways of telling one’s life story. It can be useful for identity concerns, relationship challenges, and coping after loss.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will discuss methods and try things that match a client's goals and comfort level. Together they check what helps and adjust the plan over time so therapy feels useful and relevant.
Online formats offer practical flexibility. Video calls allow face-to-face interaction for deeper conversation. Phone sessions can work when bandwidth is limited or a quicker check-in is needed. Live chat and text-based messaging make it easier to keep momentum between sessions and to touch base without scheduling a full call.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- LGBT
- Relationship issues
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 27 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English
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