Hello! My name is Dama Perez. I am a bilingual (Hablo Español) Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified Grief Educator. I offer in-person services in Irvine, CA, and statewide support via Telehealth. My practice provides a safe and culturally sensitive space for clients to share their stories and process.

I work with teenagers and adults who are navigating challenging transitions, coping with recent loss, struggling with identity issues, dealing with low self-esteem, or experiencing relationship distress.

In therapy, I can help you address and find support for the following:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Grief and Loss
• Life Transitions
• Relational Distress
• Self-Esteem Issues
• Women’s Mental Health / Miscarriage Grief

I’m here to support you on your journey to healing and growth.

I offer individual online therapy for adults 18 years and older who are experiencing mental health issues related to life transitions including grief and loss, change in lifestyles, family dynamic changes and other typical and potentially stressful life transitions.

Over my 37+ years in the field, I have been searching for what modality of therapy will best serve those seeking mental health services.

What I have found, and psychotherapeutic research has proved, is the therapist is the key change ingredient in most successful therapy. Therapy can provide a space where a person is listened, felt, and experienced at such a concentrated level of sharing with emphasis on every aspect of communication.

I believe the qualities of an ideal therapist is one who can listen intensely, be nonjudgmental, ego subordinate and unconditionally present. The therapist demonstrates and models how to struggle against seemingly destructive personality habits and how to live more open and less defensively.

The therapist presenting as an authentic person that clients can feel comfortable enough with to be open and self-revealing will be key to an optimal therapeutic relationship.

“Effective therapists do not attempt to fit their clients into a particular theoretical model; instead, they try to learn from them and in effect, gradually develop a uniquely personal psychological theory for each individual.” -Robert Firestone, PhD

In other words, the client is the “expert” concerning their lives. This expertise may be unconscious. Through therapy with an open and self-aware therapist, the process becomes a journey of helping the client, within the therapeutic relationship, to be more conscious, therefore empowered to pursue a healthier lifestyle. This requires a therapist to interact in the relationship not only intellectually, but also intuitively.

I use elements of somatoemotional release, psychodynamic and feminist psychotherapies to help inform the work that is done, but primarily the client is the therapy and present moment focus is always on the forefront of the therapeutic process.

Individual, adult therapy

Virtual and in-person

Specialized in grief, loss, and bereavement

Grief therapy in-person and via telehealth.