Deana Porter, LMFT

Deana Porter is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) practicing in California. She draws on nearly three decades of clinical work to help people who are struggling with relationships, trauma, mood concerns, and life transitions. Her manner is respectful and direct, with an emphasis on practical steps that can be used between sessions.

She uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to address anxiety, depression, stress, and coping skills. Deana also incorporates elements of the Gottman Method when relationship communication is a focus. These approaches are used to build new habits, manage intense feelings, and improve everyday interactions.

Deana often helps people facing grief, parenting strain, caregiving stress, and problems tied to family of origin. She works with concerns such as intimacy issues, low self-esteem, anger, eating or sleeping difficulties, and the challenges that come with major life changes. Adoption, foster care, blended family issues, and aging or geriatric concerns are also within her scope.

Her style is collaborative and tailored. Sessions focus on clear goals, practical tools, and small changes that add up over time. She frames progress as steady work rather than quick fixes.

To begin, Deana matches therapy to each person’s needs and preferences. She supports people through the nervous early steps and the harder middle parts of change, offering steady guidance rooted in long experience.

Therapeutic approaches and online care

Deana uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to help identify unhelpful thoughts and build practical coping strategies for anxiety, depression, and stress. CBT focuses on small, concrete changes in thinking and behavior that can improve daily functioning. She also draws on Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to teach emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness skills when feelings feel overwhelming.

Choosing the right approach is a team effort. The therapist will work with each person to decide which methods fit their goals and preferences, and adapt techniques as progress unfolds. This collaborative process helps match methods to real-life needs rather than assuming one path fits everyone.

Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to make therapy more flexible. Video calls let people work face to face from different places, phone sessions require less bandwidth, and messaging or live chat can be used for brief check-ins or when scheduling limits make longer sessions difficult. These options make it easier to fit consistent care into a busy life while using the same therapeutic tools as in-person work.