Claudia Santiago, LCSW

Claudia Santiago is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) in California with 12 years of practice. She works with adults facing stress, anxiety, depression, trauma and abuse, and relationship and parenting pressures. Sessions are offered in English and Spanish.

Claudia focuses on patterns that leave people depleted, such as difficulty saying no, people-pleasing, and staying enmeshed in others' problems. She also addresses addictions, grief, low self-esteem, ADHD, and issues tied to attachment and abandonment. Her approach is practical and down-to-earth, aimed at helping people notice what keeps repeating and try different responses.

In sessions Claudia uses Client-Centered Therapy to follow what matters most to the person and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to identify thoughts and behaviors that keep suffering going. She incorporates Mindfulness practices to help with stress and grounding. She also draws on Motivational Interviewing to support change and the Gottman Method for relationship skills when relevant.

Her style is collaborative. She helps people name patterns, set clearer boundaries, and build everyday skills for managing mood, anger, or substance use. Conversations tend to focus on small, doable steps rather than long lectures.

Claudia brings cultural awareness to her work and pays attention to how identity and life context shape problems and goals. People who have felt overwhelmed by caregiving, chronic illness, or relationship turmoil often come for help learning how to protect their own needs while staying connected.

How Claudia uses therapy approaches online