About Andrea
Andrea Plate is a licensed clinical social worker in California with 20 years of experience. She uses a straightforward, person-focused approach to help people manage anxiety, addiction, career strain, grief, and major life changes. Andrea spent nearly 15 years running a residential substance abuse treatment program at the West Los Angeles Department of Veterans Affairs.
There she worked with people facing homelessness and complex mental health needs. That long-term clinical work shaped her practical style and calm presence.
Background and approach
Now she meets with people from the general population. Sessions focus on real problems like relationship conflict, coping with loss, work stress, and struggling with substance use. She adapts conversation and tools to each person’s situation rather than using a one-size-fits-all plan.
Andrea also teaches social welfare and addiction topics at a university in West Los Angeles. Teaching keeps her thinking about new ways to explain challenges and realistic steps forward. Her practice emphasizes respect, sensitivity, and compassion.
She listens first, then helps set clear goals and small steps that fit a person’s life. Many clients find the mix of practical strategies and thoughtful conversation useful when facing life transitions or ongoing stress.
How Andrea's Approaches Work Online
Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening and understanding each person's experience. The therapist follows your lead, reflects what matters to you, and helps build goals that feel achievable. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at how thoughts, feelings, and actions connect and offers practical techniques to change patterns that cause distress.Andrea will work with you to decide which approach, or combination, fits best. She treats finding the right method as a collaborative step. Together you set goals, try techniques, and adjust the plan as your needs and preferences become clearer.
Online sessions can be done by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. Video is useful for face-to-face conversation and teaching new skills. Phone calls need less bandwidth and can fit a short break at work. Live chat and messaging let you check in more often and keep progress between longer sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life and to keep momentum when circumstances change.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Addictions
- Career difficulties
Also works with
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Mood disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
- Sex addiction
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 20 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English