Arlene Drake, LMFT

Arlene Drake is a California-licensed LMFT with four decades of clinical experience supporting individuals and families through life transitions, relationship challenges, and trauma recovery. She brings a calm, strengths-based approach to work with clients facing LGBT-related concerns, family conflict, intimacy issues, anxiety, stress, and career-related concerns. Her additional focus areas include attachment issues, adoption and foster care, aging and geriatric matters, and post-traumatic stress.

Arlene views each person as the expert of their own story and centers therapy on the client’s strengths and goals. She offers encouragement and guidance while helping clients explore patterns, process difficult experiences, and build practical coping skills. Seeking change is an act of courage, and Arlene aims to empower clients as they take steps toward a more fulfilling life.

LMFT stands for Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, a credential that reflects specialized training in relationship and family systems and in working with individuals across the lifespan. Based in California, Arlene provides compassionate, evidence-informed care tailored to the needs and values of each person she sees.

Evidence-Informed Approaches and Online Care

Arlene Drake works from evidence-based therapeutic techniques tailored to the needs presented in therapy. Her practice emphasizes approaches that address trauma-related concerns by helping clients develop coping skills, process distressing experiences, and reduce the impact of past events on daily life. She also applies family systems perspectives to explore patterns in relationships, clarify roles and boundaries, and improve communication among family members. Attachment-focused work is used to strengthen intimacy and connection by examining relational patterns and building safer ways of relating.

Choosing the right approach is a collaborative part of the therapy process. Arlene partners with clients to identify goals, consider different methods, and adapt techniques over time so therapy fits the client’s needs, values, and pace.

Online therapy options - including video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging - provide flexibility and make it easier to fit sessions into a busy life. These formats allow licensed professionals to offer consistent, accessible care across locations, support ongoing work between sessions, and accommodate different communication styles.