About Deana
Deana Porter is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 29 years of experience. She focuses on relationships, trauma, intimacy concerns, mood disorders, and the everyday stresses that make life harder. She speaks plainly and works to make next steps feel manageable for people who are worried or overwhelmed.
She uses practical, skills-based methods to help people change patterns that cause pain. That can mean learning new ways to handle conflict, develop healthier routines for sleep and eating, or manage anxiety and depression so days feel steadier.
How Deana works
She tailors conversations and plans to what each person needs and wants to achieve. Porter draws on cognitive behavioral techniques to shift unhelpful thoughts and behaviors. She also uses dialectical behavior ideas to teach emotion regulation and coping skills.
The Gottman Method and Internal Family Systems offer tools for improving relationship interaction and understanding internal parts that influence behavior. Her background includes long experience supporting people through grief, career transitions, parenting strain, caregiver stress, adoption and foster care concerns, and the effects of domestic violence and family-of-origin problems. She attends to both practical steps and the emotions underneath them.
Sessions focus on clear goals and everyday tools that people can try between meetings. She encourages direct conversation about what is working and what needs to change. The aim is steady progress toward greater confidence, better communication, and more manageable days.
Deana lists 4 ways of working on the entry:
What Deana works with
The areas below are the ones Deana selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
- Trauma and abuse
Also listed
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Narcissism
- Parenting issues
- Self esteem
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Stress, Anxiety
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Training and background
| Register | LMFT |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 29 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | California |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
Therapeutic approaches adapted for online care
Deana Porter commonly uses cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior therapy in her work. Cognitive behavioral therapy focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and changing behaviors that keep problems going, which can help with anxiety, depression, sleeping, and eating difficulties. Dialectical behavior therapy teaches practical skills for managing intense emotions, improving distress tolerance, and building more effective coping strategies.The right approach is a decision made together. She will talk with each person about goals, symptoms, and preferences and adapt techniques to fit those needs. That collaborative planning helps determine whether CBT, DBT strategies, Gottman tools for relationships, or Internal Family Systems ideas will be emphasized during sessions.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text‑based messaging. Video is useful for longer therapy sessions and detailed conversations, phone can be a simpler option with less bandwidth, live chat works for shorter check‑ins, and text messaging is handy for brief updates or coping reminders between sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into busy schedules, manage sudden stressors, and continue work across life changes.
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Common questions
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A practical next step
Write down two things you would want to be different in six months. That is the most useful thing to bring to a first session, whoever it is with. If you would rather start now than keep reading, online sessions are the quickest route.
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