About Clare
Clare O'Toole is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 20 years of experience helping adults manage stress, anxiety, depression, relationship struggles, and ADHD-related challenges. She keeps sessions collaborative and straightforward. Clare aims to help people feel steadier, more connected, and able to take practical next steps.
She uses a mix of approaches to match each person's needs rather than one fixed method. Clare draws on cognitive behavioral techniques to spot unhelpful thoughts and ACT strategies to clarify values and take committed action.
Background and approach
She also uses attachment-informed ideas to make sense of relationship patterns and emotional responses. In sessions Clare focuses on pacing and clarity. She listens to each person’s story and helps break big problems into doable steps.
Therapy may include practicing new behaviors, learning skills for emotional regulation, and planning changes that fit real life. Clare also supports people dealing with trauma, compassion fatigue, caregiver stress, and life transitions like separation or career shifts. She pays attention to how past hurts and attachment experiences can shape current choices and relationships, and she helps clients build more helpful patterns.
Sessions can involve short coaching-style check-ins or deeper work on long-standing patterns. Clare’s aim is practical: to help people build routines and skills that reduce overwhelm and increase a sense of control and purpose.
Approaches that guide online sessions
Clare often uses Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to help people clarify what matters to them and take steps aligned with those values. ACT focuses on committing to meaningful actions even when difficult thoughts or feelings are present, which can help with anxiety, depression, and motivation struggles.She also incorporates attachment-informed work to understand how early relationship patterns affect current connections and emotional reactions. This approach helps people notice repeated patterns in friendships and partnerships and try new ways of relating that feel safer and more satisfying.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. Clare collaborates with each person to choose methods that fit their goals and daily life. She may combine value-driven ACT work, cognitive-behavioral strategies for thought patterns, and attachment ideas to address relationship habits as needed.
Online sessions are offered by video call, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to make therapy more flexible. Video sessions allow face-to-face conversation for skills practice and deeper emotional work. Phone sessions can be simpler when bandwidth is low or a quieter voice check-in is needed. Live chat and text messaging suit brief coaching, check-ins between sessions, or immediate skill prompts during the week. These options let people fit therapy into work breaks, caregiving routines, or other busy schedules.
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What this therapist works with
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coaching
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Post-traumatic stress
- Relationship issues
- Self-love
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Experience
- 20 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English
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