Cheryl Cerasoli

Hi. My name is Cheryl Cerasoli, and I am a licensed Marriage & Family Therapist (LMFT) in both California and Idaho, working statewide in California via telemedicine platforms. I work with adults, and I specialize in many areas of stress-related issues, including anxiety, trauma and PTSD, grief, burnout, infidelity, and aging, using Cognitive Processing (CPT) and Cognitive Behavioral (CBT) Therapies, and Attachment, Compassion-focused (CFT), Emotionally-focused and Humanistic therapies to help a client develop skills to move towards success and relief.

My approach

I have a foundational belief in each person's core goodness. Using kindness and compassion, I soften the external weapons each of us chooses when feeling threatened, whether by our sadness, our anxiety, our loneliness, our self-imposed expectations, or our negative judging voice of disdain. I also believe strongly that each of us has needed a person to really hear us as we attempt to recognize or to verbalize or to honor our needs with no judgment or dismissal, or diminishing of these.

My focus

I've worked with military combat victims and victims of sexual assault for much of my career in this field with both individuals and in groups. I have developed curriculums with proven results in guiding victims away from reactive fear-based behaviors and towards reclaiming control in both choices being made and the resulting strength felt in these. Some of my favorite work, and where I use Attachment, and Emotionally-focused and Compassion-focused therapies, is helping an individual identify and then strengthen their core sense of self as they learn skills to substitute for the helplessness of either anxiety or sadness. An example of this is healing from the deep wounding of infidelity.

My communication style

My background in both psychology and sports psychology has always guided me more in the direction of a coach than a therapist, in other words, building on a person's strengths to encourage the most lasting and powerfully effective new behaviors through a warm and collaborative style. Some of my strongest skills include a boundless curiosity about individual differences and similarities, a keen sense of and deep respect for a client's talents, strengths, and beauty gained through observation and conversation, a broad range of experience in various areas of life, and a proven belief in a person's ability to change and to thrive.

My journey to mental healthcare

I have always appreciated being the one whom other people have sought out for listening and for guidance. My education path naturally followed this internal drive and external experience. Additionally, I have a lifelong curiosity about human behavior and the human brain, including personally looking for an explanation for and a reason to change my own behaviors. My work has been in areas where human beings are challenged and may need help in finding more useful/effective/reaffirming choices, including with reactive athletes with anger issues, male perpetrators of domestic violence, individuals suffering the deep hurt of betrayal in infidelity, at-risk teens needing to feel they belong and that they are confident in who they are.

My goals for you

I think it is key that setting a goal to be presented as a door opener. And I believe goals are best gone towards only after there is a true match-up for the client between seeing that change is available and feeling able to adopt it. It is a shared activity begun first by hearing the client and by offering possible directions, collaboratively making choices, and then supporting each step of their journey and effort. My role in this is helping a client see that change is possible and that I will be right there to help by encouraging, kindly, and challenging gently.

My first session with you

The first session is pivotal in assuring that the client feels safe to talk. I always ask myself how I can most effectively help this client connect enough to want to move forward towards changing whatever is causing them stress/discomfort/inner turmoil/panic/fear/hurt. Also, I need to share my understanding of the difficulty of connecting with a stranger for any of us.