About Brian
Brian Olden is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in California with 45 years of professional experience. He frames therapy as a collaborative effort and focuses on practical steps people can use to feel better. He speaks English and draws on decades of practice to support people facing hard moments.
He uses straightforward conversation to clarify goals and build on strengths. Sessions emphasize clear, achievable steps rather than jargon. People often bring relationship struggles, grief, anxiety, or major life changes to work through in sessions.
Background and approach
Brian blends several approaches to match each person's needs, including client-centered methods, cognitive-behavioral techniques, and trauma-focused work. He also draws on emotionally-focused and narrative ideas when they fit a person’s goals. This variety lets him shift gears if one method is not helping.
His background includes long experience with trauma and transitions. He has worked with people coping with chronic illness, caregiving stress, adoption and foster care issues, and bereavement. He is familiar with military and first responder concerns and with helping people navigate job or family changes.
In sessions Brian aims to make new strategies easy to use outside therapy. He helps people set realistic steps, notice progress, and adjust plans as needed. The early sessions typically focus on what needs to change and what strengths can be used to move forward.
How Brian’s Approaches Translate to Online Care
Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening and helping people decide what matters most to them; it’s useful when someone needs a respectful space to sort priorities and values. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) looks at how thoughts, feelings, and actions connect and teaches practical skills to change unhelpful patterns, which helps with anxiety, depression, and stress. EMDR is a trauma-focused approach that uses structured processing to help reduce the impact of distressing memories and related symptoms.Finding the right approach is part of the work together. Brian will talk through what you want to achieve and suggest methods that fit your goals and comfort level. That conversation is collaborative - you and the therapist adjust methods over time if something isn’t working.
Online sessions make it easier to keep therapy consistent. Video calls let the therapist and client see each other and use visual cues. Phone sessions work well when bandwidth is limited or you prefer not to be on camera. Live chat or text messaging supports shorter check-ins, quick coaching between sessions, or when writing helps you express thoughts. These options offer flexibility to fit therapy into a busy schedule.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Relationship issues
- Trauma and abuse
- Depression
Also works with
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Divorce and separation
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- First responder issues
- Grief
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Parenting issues
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Stress, Anxiety
- Traumatic brain injury
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 45 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English