The patterns that hurt the most are usually the oldest ones.
Whether you're coming on your own, with a partner, or as a family, the struggle is rarely just one person's fault. I work relationally and at your pace, helping you understand where the pattern began and what it's been protecting.
Four ways to work together
Individual therapy
For anxiety, stress, grief, relationships, and the times life feels heavier than it should. In person or by video anywhere in California.
Learn more →Couples therapy
For partners stuck in a cycle neither of you chose. We slow the pattern down and find where it can shift.
Learn more →Family therapy
We slow down and look at the pattern together, because what one person carries usually makes sense in context.
Learn more →Child & teen therapy
Often play-based, because play is how kids naturally show what's weighing on them. For worries, big feelings, and school stress.
Learn more →Warm, authentic, and a facilitator, not a "fixer."
I'm Chloe Gross, a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist based in Albany, California. I see children of all ages, their parents, and adults, in person and by video across the state.
My story
Before private practice, I spent five years as a school-based therapist, working with children and families from many different backgrounds. School stress is familiar ground for me: the mornings that end in tears, the homework battles, the child who holds it together all day and falls apart at home.
That experience shaped how I work today. I don't treat a child's symptoms in isolation. A child's struggles usually make sense in context, and my job is to help you see that context clearly. My training is in attachment and family systems, which means I focus on relationships, not just symptoms.
With children, my work is often play-based, since that's how kids naturally show what's weighing on them. With families and adults, sessions are conversational and collaborative. We slow down and look at the pattern together, rather than trying to fix a single person.
With adults, I've often found that stress, anxiety, depression, and relationship conflicts trace back to wounds from past experiences that are still a source of pain. Through the therapeutic relationship, I gently help clients gain insight into those experiences, drawing on Rogerian and psychodynamic approaches to support healing and growth.
Credentials & approach
Education
M.A., The Wright Institute (2022). Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist, State of California, License #156698.
Experience
Five years in school-based settings with children and families of diverse backgrounds; extensive training in child/play therapy and family therapy.
How I work
Humanistic and relational at the core, drawing on family systems, psychodynamic, narrative, strength-based, and culturally sensitive approaches.
Who I see
Toddlers through elders, individuals and families. I'm especially attuned to identity, cultural context, and multicultural family experiences.
Attachment theory and relational neuroscience
Two ideas sit underneath everything I do.
Attachment theory holds that our earliest relationships teach us what to expect from closeness. Whether we were consistently soothed, occasionally met, or left to manage alone, those experiences form a working model of connection that we carry into every relationship afterward, usually without noticing.
Relational neuroscience adds something hopeful to that picture. Our nervous systems develop in relationship and continue to be shaped by relationship throughout life. Children borrow a parent's calm before they can generate their own, a process called co-regulation, and it is part of why family work is often more effective than treating a child alone. And because the brain retains its capacity to change, the patterns laid down early are not fixed. New relational experiences, including a steady therapeutic one, can genuinely reshape them.
In practice, this means I pay close attention to what happens between people: between a parent and child, between partners, and between you and me in the room. Insight matters, but lasting change tends to come from repeated experiences of being understood and responded to well. That is what we build together.
What trauma-informed means in my office
Trauma-informed is a phrase that gets used loosely, so here is what it actually looks like in practice.
You set the pace. You will never be pushed to recount something before you're ready, and you don't have to tell the whole story for therapy to help. Some of the most useful work happens without detailed retelling at all. If a session starts to feel like too much, we slow down, and knowing you can stop is part of what makes it possible to go further later.
Symptoms are treated as adaptations. The vigilance, the shutting down, the anger that arrives faster than you'd like: these usually began as intelligent responses to circumstances that called for them. Understanding what a response was protecting tends to be more useful than trying to eliminate it.
Safety comes before depth. We build steadiness and resources first, because going into painful material without a way back out isn't healing, it's repetition. I pay attention to your nervous system in the room, not just the content of what's being said.
Context matters. Trauma is shaped by culture, identity, family, and circumstance. I work to understand yours rather than assume it, and to make the therapy room a place where the whole of your experience is welcome.
Trauma isn't only the obvious kind. It includes what didn't happen: the attunement that never came, the parent who was present but unreachable, the years of small ruptures that never got repaired. That kind of history is often the hardest to name, precisely because nothing identifiable went wrong.
Curious whether we'd be a good fit?
The best way to find out is a free 15-minute phone conversation.
Ways we can work together
All new clients begin with a free 15-minute phone consultation. Sessions are available in person in Albany and by video anywhere in California, on weekdays and Saturdays. Fees are listed below the services.
Individual therapy for adults
Sometimes you know exactly what's wrong and want help carrying it. Sometimes things look fine from the outside and something still feels off. Both are good reasons to come in. We work at whatever depth fits the moment, from practical support through a hard stretch to longer-term work on patterns that keep repeating. Trauma-informed and paced by you.
- Anxiety, depression, burnout, and chronic overwhelm
- Work stress, career transitions, and perfectionism
- Relationship difficulties, dating, and recurring dynamics
- Grief, loss, and major life changes
- Self-esteem, identity, and feeling disconnected from yourself
- Parenting stress and the transition to parenthood
- Past experiences that still affect how you live now
Couples therapy
For partners caught in a cycle neither of you chose. Most couples don't have a communication problem so much as a pattern: one reaches, one retreats, and both end up feeling unseen. We slow that pattern down enough to see it, and work on what each of you is protecting underneath it. Often what each partner is protecting was learned long before you met.
- Recurring conflict that never quite resolves
- Distance, resentment, and feeling like roommates
- Rebuilding trust and safety after a rupture
- When one partner's trauma history is affecting the relationship
- Strain after a baby, a loss, or a major transition
Family therapy
When a family keeps having the same fight, we work with the whole system rather than singling anyone out. We slow down, look at the pattern together, and find where it can shift. Grounded in attachment and family systems, and attentive to what each person is carrying.
- Recurring conflict and communication breakdowns
- Transitions: separation, blending families, moves, loss
- Repairing connection after conflict or rupture
- Families healing after a difficult or frightening experience
Child & teen therapy
For worries, big feelings, behavioral struggles, and school stress. With younger children, sessions are often play-based, since play is how kids naturally show what's weighing on them, and because it lets them approach hard things at a safe distance. Parents are an active part of the process.
- Anxiety, anger, and emotional overwhelm
- School refusal, morning battles, and academic stress
- Grief, loss, and family disruption
- ADHD, learning differences, and peer relationships
Fees
| Individual therapy (adults, teens, children) | $200 / session |
| Couples therapy | $250 / session |
| Family therapy | $250 / session |
If cost is a barrier, please say so. I hold a limited number of sliding-scale spots, and I would rather have that conversation than have you decide therapy is out of reach. The initial 15-minute consultation is always free.
Payment & insurance
I'm a private-pay practice and don't bill insurance directly. I can provide a superbill each month, which you can submit to your insurer for possible out-of-network reimbursement. Here's how to check your out-of-network benefits.
Not sure which is the right fit?
That's exactly what the free consultation is for. Tell me what's going on, and I'll suggest a place to start.
If any of these sound familiar, you're in the right place.
People rarely come to therapy with a tidy diagnosis. They come with a moment, a pattern, a feeling they can't shake. Here are some of the experiences adults, couples, and families bring into my office, including the ones that don't always get named out loud.
The reaching and the retreating
One of you moves toward conflict, needing to resolve it now. The other goes quiet and leaves the room. Each response makes the other worse, and by now neither of you can remember who started it. This is one of the most common patterns in couples work, and it's far more workable than it feels from inside it.
A reaction that's bigger than the moment
A tone of voice, a closed door, a certain kind of silence, and suddenly you're flooded, or gone, or furious in a way that doesn't match what just happened. That gap between the trigger and the response is usually where an older story lives. We don't have to excavate all of it to start loosening its grip.
"Nothing that bad happened to me"
Some of the deepest wounds don't come from a single event. They come from what was missing: attunement that never arrived, a parent who was there but unreachable, years of small ruptures that were never repaired. If you've dismissed your own history because it doesn't look dramatic enough to count, it still counts.
Functioning well and struggling anyway
You hold down the job, answer the emails, show up for everyone. From outside, nothing is wrong. Inside, you're running on vigilance and exhaustion, and you can't say why. Competence is a very effective place to hide, and it's often the last thing to give way.
The kid who's "fine at school" and falls apart at home
Teachers say your child is a delight. Then the front door closes and the meltdown begins. This isn't bad behavior. It's often a child who has held it together all day releasing it where they feel safest. We work on making home a place where big feelings can land more softly, for everyone.
School mornings that end in tears
The stomachaches, the stalling, the panic at drop-off. As a former school-based therapist, I know how much can hide inside "I don't want to go": anxiety, friendship trouble, learning struggles, or something at home. We figure out which it is, together.
The same fight, on repeat
You could write the script before it starts: the trigger, the escalation, the slammed door, the guilt. Families get stuck in loops that no one chose and no one can seem to exit. Family therapy is where we slow the loop down enough to see it, and find the one place it can change.
Growing up (or parenting) between cultures
When home holds more than one culture, family life carries extra layers: expectations from grandparents, identities that shift between school and home, love expressed in ways that don't always translate. I'm attuned to identity and cultural context, and this work is a meaningful part of my practice, including with Asian and mixed-race families.
Grief and change that kids can't put into words
A divorce, a move, a death, a new sibling: children often grieve sideways, through anger, regression, or silence. Play therapy gives them a language for what they can't yet say, and gives you a window into what they're carrying.
Being the one who holds everyone else together
The caregiver, the fixer, the family's emotional switchboard. Many adults I see learned early that their job was to manage everyone else's feelings, and now they're exhausted and unsure where they end and everyone else begins. Therapy can be the one hour that's actually about you.
Old wounds that keep showing up in new relationships
The anxiety that flares with certain people, the criticism that lands harder than it should, the pattern you swore you'd never repeat. Past experiences leave imprints. Gently understanding them, rather than just managing symptoms, is where lasting change happens.
Loving your child and not liking parenthood right now
It's more common than anyone admits. Parenting can surface our own childhoods, strain our marriages, and empty our reserves. Family therapy offers a judgment-free space to say the unsayable, and to understand where the depletion is really coming from.
Why we repeat what we know
Long before we have words, we're learning what relationships are. Attachment theory tells us that our earliest bonds, how we were soothed, seen, or left to manage alone, become a kind of internal template. Not a memory we can recall, but a set of quiet expectations: this is what closeness feels like, this is what happens when I need someone, this is what I have to do to be loved.
Then we grow up, and the template comes with us. We find ourselves drawn to what's familiar, even when familiar hurts. The partner who feels just out of reach. The friendship where we do all the caretaking. The panic when someone gets too close, or the ache when they pull away. We aren't choosing these patterns; we're recognizing them. The nervous system reaches for what it knows.
The same is true in parenting. Our children's big feelings have a way of pressing directly on our oldest wounds, and we can hear our own parents' words leave our mouths before we've decided to say them.
The template forms
Early relationships teach us what to expect from closeness: lessons stored in the body long before language.
The pattern repeats
As adults, we unconsciously recreate familiar dynamics in partners, friendships, and with our own children.
The pattern can change
Attachment isn't destiny. New relational experiences, including the one built in therapy, can rewrite the template.
This is the heart of how I work. In therapy, we don't just manage symptoms. We gently trace them back to the relationships where they began, and we practice something new inside a relationship that feels different: steady, warm, and safe. That's how templates change. Not through insight alone, but through a new experience of being met.
Whatever brought you here, it makes sense in context.
Let's look at that context together. Start with a free 15-minute conversation.
Fees, insurance & the practical stuff
How much do sessions cost?
Do you take insurance?
What is the free 15-minute consultation?
Do you offer in-person or online sessions?
My child is the one struggling. Why would the whole family come?
What ages do you work with?
How do I get started?
Resources and support
A few places to find reliable information, and the numbers to call if you need help right now.
Organizations worth knowing
- Child Mind Institute (childmind.org) for clear, evidence-based articles on children's mental health
- The Gottman Institute (gottman.com) for relationship research and practical exercises
- ICEEFT (iceeft.com) for more on Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples and families
- CHADD (chadd.org) for ADHD information and family support
- Understood (understood.org) for learning differences and school advocacy
If you need support right now
988 · Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, call or text, 24 hours a day
Text HOME to 741741 · Crisis Text Line
1-800-799-7233 · National Domestic Violence Hotline
911 · if you or someone else is in immediate danger
These links are general information and aren't tailored to any individual situation. Nothing here is a substitute for working with a therapist who knows you.
How to check your out-of-network benefits
I'm a private-pay practice, but many PPO plans reimburse a portion of what you pay for therapy. Most people don't realize they have this coverage. Finding out takes about ten minutes and one phone call.
How it works
You pay me directly at the time of session. Each month I send you a superbill, which is an itemized receipt containing everything your insurer needs: dates of service, session codes, my license number, and a diagnosis. You submit it to your insurance company, and they reimburse you directly for whatever portion your plan covers.
Before you call
Find the member services number on the back of your insurance card. Tell them you'd like to check your out-of-network outpatient mental health benefits. Then work through these questions.
Questions to ask your insurer
- Do I have out-of-network benefits for outpatient mental health?
- What is my out-of-network deductible, and how much of it have I met so far this year?
- Once the deductible is met, what percentage do you reimburse?
- Is that percentage based on my provider's actual fee, or on an allowed amount you set? If it's an allowed amount, what is it for codes 90837 and 90847?
- Is there a limit on the number of sessions per year?
- Do I need prior authorization or a referral from my doctor?
- Is telehealth covered at the same rate as in-person sessions?
- How do I submit a claim, and what is the deadline for submitting?
Before you hang up: ask for the representative's name and a reference number for the call. Quoted benefits are sometimes wrong, and that number is useful if you need to follow up later.
Two questions that matter most
The allowed amount
A plan might reimburse 70%, but 70% of an allowed amount they set, not 70% of my fee. This is the single biggest source of surprise, so it's worth asking directly.
Your deductible
If you haven't met your out-of-network deductible yet, reimbursement won't begin until you do. Knowing where you stand tells you when to expect money back.
Codes they may ask for
Insurers sometimes want a service code before quoting benefits. The ones most likely to apply here:
- 90791 initial diagnostic evaluation (your first session)
- 90837 individual therapy, 60 minutes
- 90834 individual therapy, 45 minutes
- 90847 family therapy with the client present
- 90846 family therapy without the client present
Two things to know upfront
A superbill requires a diagnosis. Insurers won't reimburse without one, so a mental health diagnosis becomes part of your medical record. Some families are completely comfortable with this and others prefer to keep therapy entirely private. Either choice is fine, and I'd rather you know before we begin than discover it later.
Reimbursement takes time. Most claims are processed within three to six weeks. You pay in full at each session regardless of what your insurer ultimately covers.
If cost is a barrier
Please say so. I hold a limited number of sliding-scale spots, and I'd rather have that conversation than have you decide therapy is out of reach.
This page is general guidance, not a guarantee of coverage. Your plan's specific terms determine what you're reimbursed. I'm always glad to walk through any of this with you during your free consultation.
Questions about any of this?
Bring them to the free 15-minute consultation. There's no obligation, and no question is too small.
Let's start with a conversation.
Send me a message
A sentence or two about what's bringing you in is plenty. Your message goes through my practice management system, which is secure and confidential, and I'll get back to you within one business day.
Open the contact formOpens in a new tab. No account or password needed, just a short form.
What happens next
- You send a short message about what's going on.
- I reply within one business day to set up a free 15-minute call.
- On that call we talk about what you're looking for and whether I'm the right fit. No obligation either way.
Call or text
The fastest way to reach me. Every new client starts with a free 15-minute conversation, and there's no obligation to schedule anything afterward.
If you get my voicemail, leave a good time to call back and I'll return it within one business day.
Good for quick questions. For anything personal, use the contact form instead, since ordinary email isn't confidential.
Location & hours
Albany, CA 94706, in person
Online video sessions across California
Most weekdays and Saturdays
In a crisis?
This form isn't monitored around the clock. If you or your child are in immediate danger, call 911, or call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) for 24/7 support.