A couples therapist in Highland Park
My office is at 5317 North Figueroa Street, in the middle of Highland Park. For many of the couples I see, that means therapy happens in the neighborhood they already live in: a trip down Figueroa or York, not a drive across the city at the end of a long day.
I’m Tina Marie Del Rosario, a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW). I’ve worked with couples and individuals for more than 13 years, and I also teach and supervise other therapists. This is a solo practice, so the person you talk to on the first call is the person you’ll work with.
Being close by is useful. It isn’t the point. What couples actually come in for is the pattern between them, and that pattern would follow you to any office in Los Angeles.
Who I see from Highland Park
Couples first
Most of my work is with couples: married and not, living together and not, monogamous and open. Many have been together long enough to have a routine fight, the one about the dishes that is never really about the dishes. Some are in what people call roommate mode, still kind to each other and no longer close. Some are dealing with a betrayal. Some have already tried couples therapy, learned the communication tools, and found that the same argument came back anyway. More on how I approach this on my couples therapy page.
Families and other relationships of two or more people
I also work with adult family members and other relationships that matter: a mother and her grown daughter, adult siblings, a parent and an adult child, polyamorous partners, bandmates, or business and creative partners who started something together and can no longer talk about it. This work can include two people or several. I see adults only, so everyone in the room is 18 or older. You can read more about family therapy and relationship therapy.
Individuals
I see individuals too, people who want to understand their own part in relationships that keep going the same way, partnered, single or somewhere in between.
What couples here tend to bring in
Highland Park is an old neighborhood that has changed a lot. Families who have been here for generations live on the same blocks as people who arrived recently, and many of the homes are older bungalows and small apartments where there isn’t much room to cool off after an argument. When the whole place is a few rooms, a fight has nowhere to go. You can’t storm off to another floor.
Work shapes a lot of it too. Many people on this side of town do creative, entertainment or freelance work, with schedules that swing between nothing and everything. One partner is on a job for weeks, the other is holding the household together, and when the job wraps, nobody quite knows how to be home together again. Others work remotely from a corner of the bedroom, so the relationship and the job share the same small space all day.
Money and housing pressure show up as well, along with the bigger questions of a longer relationship: whether to have kids, whether to move, whether to open the relationship, whether to stay.
How I work, in person on Figueroa
Couples often understand their fight perfectly and still can’t stop having it. When an argument starts, both nervous systems react faster than any skill you’ve learned. Your nervous system is the part of you that decides, in a split second, if you’re safe. So I don’t only talk about the pattern. I help you catch it while it’s happening in the room, slow it down, and try something different together.
I draw on PACT, Imago, attachment-based work, interpersonal neurobiology, the Gottman Method and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), and I use what fits the two of you. I won’t take sides, and I don’t keep individual secrets in couples work. Sometimes I meet with each partner separately before we begin together.
Sitting in the same room has a particular value for couples. I can see the small things: who goes quiet, who leans forward, the moment the temperature changes. If you need to move faster on something specific, a Couples Intensive gives you 3 or 6 hours in one block.
Getting to the office
The office is at 5317 North Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90042. Figueroa is one of Highland Park’s main streets, and York Boulevard, the neighborhood’s other main street, crosses it too. If you’re coming from farther away, the Arroyo Seco Parkway (the 110) runs along the edge of the neighborhood, and the Metro A Line has a Highland Park station.
Parking is on the street. Give yourself a few extra minutes to find a spot so you’re not walking in already flustered, which is a hard way to start a couples session.
Online sessions when that’s easier
I also see couples, families and individuals online anywhere in California. You can mix the two: come in person most weeks and go online when one of you is traveling for work, when a sitter cancels, or when it’s simply been a long day. See online therapy in California.
Services and fees
- Couples therapy: weekly or every other week, for couples caught in the same cycle
- Couples Intensives: 3 or 6 hours of focused work
- Family and relationship therapy: for two or more adults
- Individual therapy: for your own patterns in relationships
Sessions are $250 for 60 minutes and $325 for 90 minutes. Individual sessions are $175 for 50 minutes and $225 for 80 minutes. Couples Intensives are $600 for 3 hours and $1,100 for 6 hours. I don’t bill insurance directly, but for regular sessions I can give you a superbill to submit for possible out-of-network reimbursement. Superbills aren’t available for intensives or retreats.
Book or call
The first step is a free 20-minute video consultation. You tell me a little about what’s happening, ask whatever you want, and we see whether I’m the right fit. There’s no pressure to book afterward. You can book a free consultation online or call me at (323) 607-7329.
