About Gia
Gia Castiglia Schwarzer is a California licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) with seven years of professional experience. She approaches counseling with a plain focus: people already have strengths that help them move through hard times. Gia aims to help people find practical ways to use those strengths in daily life.
Her work often centers on stress, anxiety, depression, grief, and coping with life changes. She also supports people facing relationship concerns, parenting strain, intimacy-related issues, and compassion fatigue.
How Gia works
Additional areas include self-esteem, addiction, trauma and abuse, anger, and young adult issues. Gia trained in psychology, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Political Science from the University of California, Irvine. She holds a Master of Arts in Psychology from Chapman University in Orange, California.
After licensing she has worked in independent practice and in school settings, and she has taken time away from clinical work to raise a family. Her in-session style aims to be collaborative and straightforward. She uses Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy approaches and draws on interpersonal ideas to help people notice unhelpful patterns and try new ways of coping.
Sessions focus on practical skills and connecting solutions to everyday situations. Gia emphasizes a gentle, problem-focused process. She encourages small, manageable steps and looks for what already works in a person's life.
That approach guides how goals are set and progress is tracked during therapy.
Gia lists one way of working on the entry:
What Gia works with
The areas below are the ones Gia selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Grief
Also listed
- Addictions
- Anger management
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Family conflicts
- Intimacy-related issues
- Parenting issues
- Self esteem
- Trauma and abuse
- Young adult issues
Training and background
| Register | LMFT |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 7 |
| 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
CBT and Practical Strategies for Online Therapy
Gia commonly uses Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, which focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and testing new behaviors. CBT helps people reduce anxiety, manage depression, handle anger, and change habits that get in the way of daily life.Her approach also draws on interpersonal ideas that look at how relationships and communication affect feelings and behavior. This can help when dealing with relationship strain, parenting challenges, or navigating difficult conversations.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will collaborate with each person to decide which tools and methods fit best. Goals, preferences, and life demands guide those choices so the plan fits practical needs.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video sessions let people meet face to face even when schedules or distance make in-person visits hard. Phone sessions can be useful when bandwidth is limited or a shorter check-in is needed. Chat and text can support ongoing work between sessions and offer flexible ways to process thoughts and try new skills throughout the week.
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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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