About Matthew
Matthew Esselstrom is a California-based licensed marriage and family therapist with 22 years of clinical experience. Matthew focuses on practical help for everyday problems like stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, and trouble with motivation. He approaches people with respect, sensitivity, and compassion and aims to make the first steps toward change feel doable.
Matthew adapts conversations and plans to fit each person’s needs rather than using a one-size-fits-all script. Sessions tend to focus on concrete goals, skill building, and realistic steps that can be tried between visits.
How Matthew works
He offers guidance for managing anger, substance issues, grief, and disrupted sleep patterns as well as support for career or relationship concerns. People come for help with mood and energy differences, including depression and bipolar concerns, and for navigating intimacy or attachment challenges.
He also supports those facing parenting stress, caregiver strain, and complicated life transitions such as separation or blended family challenges. Matthew works with issues tied to neurodiversity and personality-related patterns when they affect daily functioning. His style blends encouragement with practical strategies meant to fit into busy lives.
He helps clients make small changes that add up over time. The goal is clearer choices and improved day-to-day coping. Matthew conducts sessions in English and practices across multiple formats to match what works best for each person.
He welcomes thoughtful questions about how therapy might fit into a hectic schedule and what a first session will look like.
What Matthew works with
The areas below are the ones Matthew selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Anger management
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Divorce and separation
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Young adult issues
Training and background
| Register | LMFT |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 22 |
| 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
Approaches that guide online sessions
Matthew uses evidence-based therapeutic techniques aimed at clear goals and practical change. One common approach focuses on skill building for emotion regulation and stress management, teaching specific tools to reduce anxiety and improve daily functioning. Another approach emphasizes problem-solving and behavioral strategies for habits like sleep, eating, and substance use, helping people set small, manageable steps and track progress.Choosing the right approach is part of the work. Matthew collaborates with each person to identify priorities, try methods that fit their life, and adjust the plan based on what helps. This is a team effort where the client’s goals and preferences guide the selection of techniques.
Online sessions are offered through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to make therapy easier to fit into a busy life. Video lets you use visual cues for interpersonal work, phone can be a good option when bandwidth is limited, and chat or text messaging supports brief check-ins or ongoing coaching between sessions. These options increase flexibility and help people keep momentum when schedules are tight.
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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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