About Jilla
Jilla Lavian is a licensed clinical social worker in California with 20 years of experience. She focuses on helping people manage stress, anxiety, grief, and life changes in practical, everyday terms. Jilla also supports people dealing with parenting strain, career shifts, relationship concerns, and feelings of emptiness or low self esteem.
She uses a mix of straightforward talk and reflective listening to help people notice their thoughts and feelings. That often leads to clearer choices and small steps that feel doable.
Background and approach
Sessions blend practical skills with attention to patterns that come from past relationships and life stories. Jilla studied social work at the University of Southern California and also trained as a transformational life coach. Her background informs a style that balances goal-setting with paying attention to emotional experience.
She draws on cognitive behavioral ideas, mindfulness practices, motivational interviewing, psychodynamic thinking, and solution-focused techniques. In a typical session she will listen, ask focused questions, and suggest simple strategies to try between meetings. That might include changing unhelpful thinking, practicing grounding exercises, or setting one small goal for the week.
The aim is to restore clarity, build on strengths, and reduce daily overwhelm. Jilla offers therapy in English and Persian. She works with people facing caregiver stress, immigration-related issues, codependency, attachment or abandonment concerns, and multicultural challenges.
Her practice includes support for those coping with compassion fatigue and career or life-purpose questions.
How Jilla’s approaches translate to online work
Jilla uses cognitive behavioral ideas to identify unhelpful thoughts and try small practical changes, which works well over video or chat when tracking progress between sessions. Mindfulness therapy is offered as short practices and grounding exercises to reduce anxiety and improve sleep, suitable for phone or text reminders as well. Motivational interviewing helps clarify values and goals, using focused questions to support change in areas like career transitions or caregiving stress.Finding the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist will listen to your goals and preferences, then suggest one or two methods to try. You can give feedback and adjust the plan as you go, making the process collaborative and tailored to what helps you most.
Online formats provide flexible ways to stay consistent. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation and visual cues, phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is low, and live chat or text-based messaging supports quick check-ins or brief coaching between appointments. These options make it simpler to fit therapy into a busy routine and to use written tools or practice prompts between sessions.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Family conflicts
- Parenting issues
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Immigration issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Multicultural concerns
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Women's issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 20 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English, Persian