Sharon (Shonnie) Brown, LMFT

Sharon (Shonnie) Brown is a California licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) with 30 years of clinical experience. She works with adults facing stress, anxiety, relationship challenges, self-esteem struggles, grief, trauma and abuse, codependency, and life transitions. Sharon pulls from long practice helping people manage separation and divorce, workplace stress, intimacy concerns, and parenting strain.

Sharon trained at UC Berkeley for her B.A. and earned an M.A. in counseling psychology from JFK University in Orinda, California. Her practice history includes individual and couples work and leading groups on separation and divorce, infidelity, co-parenting education, and social anxiety. She also writes professionally and uses writing as a therapeutic tool when appropriate.

Her style is direct and straightforward. Sessions focus on concrete tools such as goal setting, coping skills, mindfulness exercises, and optional writing tasks. Sharon pays attention to how past attachment and family dynamics shape present-day reactions and relationships.

She draws on several therapeutic approaches including attachment-based ideas, client-centered listening, cognitive behavioral techniques, dialectical behavior strategies, and existential perspectives. When childhood trauma shows up, she notes resources such as Pete Walker’s work as a roadmap that informs her support for complex trauma responses.

Sharon often helps people build basic self-soothing skills, stronger self-compassion, and clearer self-protection strategies. She aims to help clients take practical steps forward, one step at a time, toward more manageable emotions and clearer boundaries.

Approaches you can access in online sessions