Dr. Sherrin Packer-Rosenthal

Dr. Sherrin Packer-Rosenthal is a California clinician with 40 years of professional experience and holds the LCSW and LPCC credentials. She helps people facing stress, anxiety, trauma and abuse, parenting challenges, and major life changes. She also works with issues such as abandonment, adoption and foster care concerns, attachment difficulties, and chronic illness related stress.

Her approach mixes practical methods from different schools of thought. Sessions focus on clear skills people can use day to day. She draws on attachment-informed ideas to strengthen relationships and on cognitive-behavioral techniques to change unhelpful thinking and behavior patterns.

Dr. Packer-Rosenthal keeps current with research in psychology, neurology, and biology and filters new findings with a critical eye. She applies methods that fit each person’s goals rather than following a single model. That means the work can include skills training, emotion regulation strategies, and relational repair techniques.

She has a long history in community mental health, including an NIMH fellowship and development of children’s shelter programs. That background informs her work with parents, school-related issues such as IEPs and 504 plans, and practical supports for caregiving stress.

In sessions she helps clients practice ways to repair ruptures in relationships and to build confidence in parenting or partnership roles. The focus is on helping people develop skills they can use outside therapy and on collaborative planning for next steps.

How her approaches translate to online work

Attachment-based work focuses on patterns in relationships and how early bonds shape current interactions. Online sessions can help identify those patterns and practice new ways of connecting with partners and children through role work and reflective conversation.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) breaks problems into thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and teaches concrete skills to shift them. In virtual sessions this often means setting small homework tasks, practicing thought records, and reviewing progress together.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) offers emotion regulation and distress-tolerance skills that are useful for intense anxiety or strong emotional reactions. These skills translate to short in-session coaching and step-by-step practice between meetings.

Choosing an approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will discuss goals, preferences, and immediate needs and then suggest methods to try. Plans get adjusted over time based on what helps most and what fits daily life.

The original biography does not list specific online session formats, so confirm available options before booking. Many people find online work helps fit sessions around family or work commitments, allows shorter check-ins when needed, and makes it possible to practice skills at home. Licensed professionals can use online sessions to teach parenting strategies, review behavior plans, and coach around relationship repair without promising a particular format.