Narrative Therapy
You are not your problem. We separate you from it, examine the stories you live inside, and rewrite the ones that no longer fit.
Narrative Therapy & Philosophical Taoism · Online Across California
Your preferred identity is already functioning. underneath it all.
You've probably already read the books. Maybe done therapy, maybe not. You know your patterns, but they're still running. The gap between knowing and actually changing is the real problem, and it's exactly what my work addresses. You exist inside stories you were handed and never agreed to. My job is to help you get under all that noise — to the version of yourself that already works.
Gabriel Garcia
LMFT #99274
“The problem is not with you. It's with your conditioning, your training — the lessons you were handed and never chose. Change begins the moment you decide to learn how to learn, to feel your own lessons, and to finally do something about them.”
My Approach
What I actually do.
My fluency is in two disciplines: Narrative Therapy and Philosophical Taoism.
Philosophical Taoism
Less forcing, more flowing. Wu wei — actionless action — isn't passivity. It's the recognition that your nature isn't the problem, and forcing it never was the answer. The most durable change doesn't come from pushing harder; it comes from finding what's already trying to move and getting out of its way.
Honest Conversation
Being a therapist isn't a call-in job where you ramble for years and nothing moves. I'll tell you the truth and actually stay in it with you — no performance, no pretending. You'll always know where you stand.
Four Domains
Somatic, Intellectual, Emotional, and Spiritual. We pay attention to all four, because a life doesn't change in just one of them.
Taoist Elements
All energy needs to find its correct course.
The Taoist wisdom doesn't ask you to eliminate what's troubling you, instead we figure out what those patterns are trying to tell you. Worry, grief, anger, shame are not disorders to be removed. They're innocent energies waiting to find their correct course. My work is in the recognition and then transmutation, not suppression.
"Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man."
— Zhuangzi, The Butterfly as Companion: Meditations on the First Three Chapters of the Chuang Tzu
Worry → Competency
Worry is attention that hasn't been handed its work. Give it a direction and it becomes competence.
Addiction → Connection
Underneath the craving is a need for connection that got rerouted. We follow it back to people.
Anger → Boundaries
Anger is information. It marks the line that matters — we learn to read it early and say it plainly.
Grief → Devotion
Grief is the receipt for having loved. Its course was never getting over it; it's devotion.
Shame → Belonging
Shame insists you're too much, or not enough, to be loved. Being truly known is how you call its bluff.
Fear → Aliveness
Fear tends to show up exactly where the aliveness is. We move toward it — your pace, your terms.
Who I Work With
People who actually want to change — not just understand why they haven't.
Adults
Accomplished people carrying anxiety, addiction, a creative block, a transition that won't resolve — or the quieter weight of having built a good life and wondering what it's for. We work where it actually lives.
Artists & Makers
Writers, musicians, designers, founders — anyone whose work draws on the same inner well that gets blocked, flooded, or burned out. I come from this world. I know its particular weather.
Couples
Partners tired of the same fight who want to understand it instead. We get honest about what's underneath and rebuild connection without pretending the hard parts away.
Teens
Young people in the middle of becoming someone. I meet them as whole people with real interior lives, not problems for the adults to manage.
Everyone is welcome here. I work with people of all races, faiths, body sizes, abilities, gender identities, and sexual orientations. LGBTQ+, kink, poly, and non-traditional relationships are affirmed here.
Where We Meet
Three ways to do the work.
Most of it happens online — a private virtual office open to anyone living in California. When we meet in person, it's somewhere worth being.
The Virtual Office
Where most of my clients work with me. The same depth, minus the commute and the parking — from your study, your hotel room, wherever your life actually happens. Available to anyone in California, and easy to keep consistent around a full schedule.
Walk & Talk Therapy
For clients from Woodland Hills through the Conejo Valley, I hold sessions outdoors at a quiet park in the Santa Monica Mountains. Moving bodies, open air, oak shade — the conversation tends to find a different gear out among the hills.
The Hancock Park Office
A private room a few steps off Larchmont, centrally located near Hollywood, three days a week. For when you want the steadiness of a dedicated space to return to — the same chair, the same hour, the same room holding the work.
Rates
What it costs, plainly.
A free 20-minute call comes first.
Gabriel Garcia, LMFT
Adults, artists, couples, and teens. Online across California, walk-and-talk in the Santa Monica Mountains, or in the Hancock Park office.
- Free 20-minute consultation
- Online sessions anywhere in California
- Private out-of-network practice · superbills provided
- A few sliding-scale spots held open each season
Associate Therapists
Associate Marriage & Family Therapists working under Gabriel's supervision — excellent care at a more accessible rate.
MLMimi Le, AMFT
Couples, teens and individual · anxiety, identity, and cultural belonging.
ARAnalia Rey, AMFT
Couples, teens and individual · heartbreak and relationships.
Let's begin
Let's talk. I'm serious about your change.
I keep a deliberately small caseload, so the people I work with get my full attention. Twenty minutes, free, no pitch — we find out if it's a fit.
Book your free consultation
Call or text
323.334.0464
Online
Anywhere in California
In nature
Woodland Hills – Conejo Valley
Office
Hancock Park · 3 days a week