Noella Barb

Hello, my name is Noella Barb and I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who has also worked as a Licensed Vocational Nurse. My approach to therapy is holistic and patient-centered and calming. My focus is on empathy and unconditional positive regard. I am an active listener who collaborates with my clients to help develop a treatment and set maintainable goals to ensure empowerment and success in the therapeutic journey.

My approach

I tend to use a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy approach when working with addictive and abusive clients since I have found it to be a very effective approach. I also rely on brief Solution Focus Therapy to help clients gain insight into their issues and to gain a healthy solution. When working with children I rely on Play Therapy and Art Therapy to help them feel comfortable to open up and trust me in the therapeutic setting.

My focus

I have a passion for working with women, children, and families who struggle with addiction and abuse challenges. I enjoy working with African American, Latino, and Asian women and children since I can relate to the culture but I am culturally competent to work with various cultures in California.

My communication style

I am an active listener who is empathetic and challenges the client to explore the paths to finding solutions to the issues he is seeking help for. I rely on Motivational interviewing questions to help the client work on himself in therapy. I am calm, cordial, and mindful with the client when I am building a therapeutic relationship.

My journey to therapy

The driving force for me is that I am a very caring, kind, and compassionate person. I also have worked in the caring field for many years as a nurse. I feel the need to help make people and situations better and I try to teach and empower my clients. I love being a therapist because it is very rewarding when you have success and you have a feeling that you helped someone improve their mental health and improve their quality of life. I like to think that as a therapist I give Hope to my clients and they in return make me Hopeful.

My goals for you

I am an active listener who collaborates with my clients to help develop a treatment and set maintainable goals to ensure empowerment and success in the therapeutic journey. I prefer to get a history of the client's therapeutic journeys and join with them to set new goals or visit previous goals that were not achieved. I usually ask the client to set 3 goals initially and work on achieving them before adding more goals.

My first session with you

I like to get a history of the client's family, his likes, dislikes, what types of things he/she enjoys, and why they are seeking therapy. I like to make it as informal as possible to help the client to build trust and to feel welcomed in the session. I usually compliment the client and praise them for seeking help from me as their therapist.