- Attachment-Based Therapy
- DBT skills
- Mindfulness practice
About Carey
Carey Alvord is a California LMFT with 23 years of clinical experience. She focuses on stress, anxiety, family concerns, trauma and abuse, parenting, and compassion fatigue. Carey works with parents by background and with adolescents and adults who want to understand attachment patterns related to childhood loss and trauma.
Carey draws on attachment-based ideas to help people understand how early relationships affect current responses. She offers a clear, structured way to talk through painful memories and relationship patterns. Sessions balance direct skills practice with space to tell important stories about the past.
Her approach includes elements of Dialectical Behavior Therapy, mindfulness work, motivational interviewing, and narrative therapy. Those methods are used to build emotion regulation, present-moment awareness, motivation for change, and new ways to make sense of life events. Carey adapts techniques to what each person needs while keeping sessions straightforward and focused.
Carey has worked with biological, foster, adoptive, and relative parents on attachment-focused parenting concerns. She also sees teens and adults who want help naming and shifting attachment-related patterns after loss or trauma. Her practice pays attention to cultural and multicultural factors that shape family life.
Sessions look at everyday problems like feeling overwhelmed, repeating painful relationship cycles, or handling caregiving stress. Carey uses practical tools alongside longer-term narrative and attachment work. She asks new clients to complete a short matching questionnaire and schedule a first session to get started.
How Carey uses evidence-based approaches online
Attachment-Based Therapy focuses on how early relationships shape current reactions. It helps people spot patterns in close relationships and learn different ways of relating. This approach can be useful for parents and adults dealing with loss, trauma, or repeated relationship pain.Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, teaches practical skills for managing strong emotions and improving interpersonal effectiveness. Those skills are concrete tools for stress, anxiety, and intense reactions that get in the way of daily life.
Carey treats finding the right approach as a collaborative process. She will work with each person to decide which methods suit their goals and values. That selection happens together, based on needs and what feels workable in real life.
Confirm current session options before booking so you know exactly how sessions are delivered. Online work can make it easier to fit appointments into a busy week, allow for shorter check-ins when needed, and remove travel time. Therapists often combine skills practice, narrative work, and reflective conversations in virtual sessions to help people manage emotions and rewrite old patterns.
Areas of expertise
Primary focus
Additional focus areas
Therapeutic approaches
Experience
23+ years
Listed in
California
Languages
English
Frequently asked questions
What concerns does she usually address?
She works with stress, anxiety, family issues, trauma and abuse, parenting concerns, and compassion fatigue. Additional focuses include attachment, adoption and foster care, caregiver stress, and women's issues.
What is her therapy style like?
Carey uses a mix of attachment-based work, DBT skills, mindfulness, motivational interviewing, and narrative approaches. Sessions combine skills practice with conversations about personal history and relationships.
How long has she been practicing?
She has 23 years of professional experience working with parents, teens, and adults on attachment and trauma-related concerns.
Where is she licensed and based?
She is an LMFT licensed in California and practices from that state.
Can non-English speakers work with her?
Sessions are offered in English.
Does she work with international clients?
She does not accept international clients at this time.
How are sessions scheduled and paid for?
Cost varies with location and sessions use a subscription that can be canceled at any time.
How do I begin a first session?
Select the See online therapy options button, complete a short matching questionnaire, and schedule a first session.
Online talk therapy through BetterHelp is for adults aged 18 and over and is not emergency care. If you are in danger, use the emergency numbers. Find someone else by name.