Express your mess, don't hide it.
Meet Kerry Martinelli, LMFT
You're not a mess. You're a person who learned to cope — and then kept coping long past the point where it was working. Maybe that looks like a complicated relationship with food or your body. Maybe it looks like decades of performing neurotypicality and wondering why you're so depleted. Maybe it just looks like being incredibly self-aware and completely stuck at the same time.
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I'm Kerry and I work with adults who are done white-knuckling their way through life. I specialize in eating and body image issues, neurodivergent adults, and the particular exhaustion that comes from being high-functioning and quietly falling apart.
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My approach is experiential and body-based. I use Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Brainspotting because I've found that insight alone rarely gets people unstuck — healing happens when we can actually reach what's been stored beneath all that effortful coping. Messiness is not only allowed in my office, it's usually where the most important work happens.
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I bring both clinical training and lived understanding to this work. I'm not going to ask you to be more put-together than you are. In fact, I'd rather you weren't.
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I practice via telehealth across California through The Healing Journey Counseling.
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You've been holding it together long enough... let's try something different!
Healing isn't linear, and you don't have to be put-together to start.
Education & Training
Education & Licensure
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Master's degree in Marriage and Family Therapy
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Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist CA #144038
Training & Certification
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Brainspotting Therapist Level 1
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Integrative Somatic Parts Work level 3 certified
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Intuitive eating
Professional Associations & Connections
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Neurodiversity affirming therapists
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Intuitive eating, Health At Every Size care providers
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California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists
I work with clients who are willing to go outside the box to get results.
I am passionate about using somatic internal family systems (IFS) and brainspotting to help people connect to the wisdom within us and transform their lives. I also pull from other therapy methods including experiential, existential, DBT and ACT. Our sessions may look different from what you’ve seen before - some sessions may be largely silent, others will have us talking out loud to your parts. ​
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Whatever you are feeling, you are not alone.
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I will laugh with you and cry with you. ​I am not a therapist that just sits there and nods. I am curious, quirky, and authentic so that you can be the same. I talk in metaphors because I think in pictures. I want to empower you to be yourself without any reservations.
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What does this journey look like?
You're probably a deep thinker. Someone who has spent a lot of time trying to understand yourself — and has mostly succeeded. You can trace the thread from painful experiences to present patterns. You know why you do what you do.
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And yet the knowing hasn't fixed it. There's still a gap between what you understand and what you actually feel. The inner peace, self-trust, and freedom you're after keeps hovering just out of reach.
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That gap isn't a character flaw. It's not a sign that you're broken or that therapy hasn't worked. It's a sign that insight alone only goes so far — and that the rest of the work lives in the body, not the mind. My approach works from the bottom up, helping you access what talking about it hasn't been able to touch, so that understanding and feeling finally start to meet each other.
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This is collaborative, and it's allowed to be messy. You bring the experiences, the stories, the parts of yourself you've been managing and hiding and trying to make sense of. I bring the compassion, the tools, and a genuine belief that the stuff you've been most afraid to look at is exactly where your healing lives. Together we sort through it — not to clean it up and put it away, but to finally let it mean something different.
The lotus is a symbol of rebirth and resilience. I chose it for my logo as a reminder that beautiful life can grow from the mess.
You don't have to have it figured out to start.
I've done my own version of this work. I know what it's like to live at odds with yourself — to sense that something is off but not quite be able to reach it, to work so hard at being okay that you lose track of what okay even feels like. And I know what it's like when something finally shifts. When the energy you were spending on managing and maintaining starts becoming available for actually living.
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That's what I want for you!
I'm not going to tell you change is easy. But I will tell you that staying stuck is its own kind of hard — and most of my clients find that the mess they were most afraid to look at turns out to be far more survivable than they expected. Often, it's the most important thing they ever let themselves feel.
You don't need to arrive at my office with anything figured out. You don't need a tidy narrative or the right words. Everything you need is already in you — some of it waiting to be found, some of it waiting to be heard for the first time. What I offer is a space where you don't have to perform or protect or hold it together. Where being uncertain, unfinished, and a little messy isn't a problem to solve. It's just where we start the journey.
You won't be doing this alone...
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The most important thing I bring to this work isn't a technique or a framework — it's genuine presence. I'm not sitting across from you with a clipboard, waiting for the right clinical moment. I'm in it with you. Witnessing your story, seeing the parts you've been hiding, and staying there without flinching.
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My goal is simple: that you leave every session feeling like you were actually seen. Not managed. Not analyzed. Seen.
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I can't make life less hard. But I can get in the water with you — and sometimes, having someone swimming alongside you even for an hour is exactly what makes it possible to keep going on your own.
What are your fees?
Individual sessions (50 min) are $175.​
Family sessions (80 min) are $255. Sessions are longer to allow all parties to have input.
​I offer limited sliding scale slots. Please contact me to discuss availability and need.
Can I use my insurance?
I am an out of network provider. If you have out of network benefits with a PPO insurance plan, you may be able to get reimbursed for a portion of your therapy fees. I provide a superbill to submit to your insurance provider.
We can find out about what your out of network benefits are through Mentaya.
How do virtual sessions work?
Virtual sessions are conducted like a Zoom meeting but on a HIPAA compliant platform.
It is recommended that are you in a quiet, private space so that you have enough comfort to speak freely. Using earbuds or a headset is another way to increase your privacy by making my part of the conversation less public.
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You can log into your session from anywhere - home, work or on vacation - as long as you are in the state of California.
Take the first step towards healing.
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Initial Discussion
I will contact you to discuss your goals for therapy and get a sense of how we would work together.
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Begin to heal
We will meet weekly to get established and then determine what frequency will best serve your needs.