Lisa Chen, LMFT
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (#140374)
You are still delivering.
Most of the people who contact me are not in crisis. They’re running a company, a fund, a department, a group practice or organization, a family. They are performing at the level they always have. From the outside, they’re at the top of their game. Nothing has broken publicly.
What has changed is more subtle. Sleep, first usually. Then patience at home, in a way you’d never show at work. Some people who see me are carrying something on top of all this that nobody at the office knows about. A parent who is failing. A loss they never stopped moving through. A relationship they’ve been struggling. They’re stuck, and no one realizes it.
Why you won’t spend 5 sessions explaining your job to me
Before I was a therapist, I was on the other side of the desk. I trained at Wharton and Harvard Business School and spent my early career in investment banking, Wall Street trading, and tech. At the time, I thought I could do it all. But, I left after my own burnout taught me something neither degree program had. Capacity is not a character trait. It’s a resource, and it runs out.
Not everyone who finds me is depleted. Some arrive running at full capacity and unhappy in a way they cannot explain.
Perfectionism where the standard moves every time you reach it
Imposter syndrome, still, after everything you’ve accomplished
An inability to say no or set boundaries
A career that no longer fits
Being the one everyone relies on, and having no one you go to.
Taking or coming back from a leave and wanting to do it differently this time
You’ve done talk therapy, but insight isn’t enough
Who I Work With
I work with C-Suite executives, founders, senior operators, physicians, attorneys, investors, and professional athletes, along with other high-achieving people in visible roles where a reputation is part of what has to be protected. Many of my clients are women leading in rooms where they are still the exception, and where competence has become a kind of armor. That work happens in therapy, or in executive coaching when the goal is professional rather than clinical.
What happens at that level rarely stays there. It reaches the partner who has been managing around someone else's exhaustion, the marriage that has gone quiet, the kids, the parent no one else is holding. So I also work with the people around my clients, and sometimes instead of them.
A significant part of my practice is couples. Two people who handle hard conversations well everywhere except with each other. Couples rebuilding after infidelity or a long erosion of trust. Couples who are not sure whether they are trying to repair the marriage or end it well, and need help telling the difference before they decide. Often one partner has been ready for a while and the other has not, and the more ready one is the person reading this. That is a normal place to start. I see couples weekly, and I run intensive formats for people working against a date or wanting to go deeper than a 50 minute weekly session allows.
Some of the people who contact me are not looking for themselves. They are the one in the family who finds the help, and they are usually tired too.
What Therapy Looks Like With Me
Many of my clients have done therapy before and found it did not move anything. In the first session I ask what you tried and why it did not hold. By the third we write down what change would look like in terms specific enough to check. What you would be doing differently on a Tuesday. What the people closest to you would notice.
When I think you are working around something, I say so, and I keep saying it. I help my clients find their blindspots. That’s typically the part clients tell me they could not find elsewhere.
I am trained in EMDR, Internal Family Systems, somatic approaches, and the Gottman Method. We work with the nervous system, not only the calendar.
The address of this Hermosa Beach therapist's office in Hermosa Beach, CA is 2615 Pacific Coast Highway, Suite 326, Hermosa Beach, CA, 90254.
Education
Professional Affiliations
Internal Family Systems (IFS) Level 1 and 2 Trained, Certification in Progress, IFS Institute
Intimacy from Inside Out (IFIO) Couples Therapy, Toni Herbine Blank and Staff Trainer
Gottman Level 1 and 2 Trained Couples Therapist
Psychodynamic Therapy | Attachment-Based Therapy
UCLA Mindful Meditation Levels I and II
Certifications & Expertise
FAQs
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In a community this size, a therapist can turn out to know your friends, and people leave good therapy because of it. I keep my practice separate from the social life of the South Bay, and I will tell you directly if I have any connection to someone in your life.
For clients where being recognized carries a professional cost, my Hermosa Beach office is private. I also see clients in West Los Angeles, and I offer secure telehealth throughout California and Florida, with early morning and evening appointments.
I do not bill insurance. No diagnosis is submitted to a third party and no record of your care leaves this practice. Nothing is disclosed to an employer, a board, or an insurer.
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My associate clinicians are trained in the same methods and see clients at lower fees, and several of them do work I do not. If one of them is the better fit for you, we will tell you rather than sell you a session with me.
Sessions with me begin at $450. Sessions with associates range from $180-$300.
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Therapy is clinical treatment for concerns like burnout, anxiety, trauma, and relationship distress. Executive coaching is a non-clinical engagement focused on leadership performance, decision-making, and transitions. Lisa offers both and helps clients determine the right fit in an initial consultation.
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Lisa Chen, LMFT, is a psychotherapist, executive coach, author, and media expert in Hermosa Beach and Los Angeles, California. A former Wall Street and corporate executive educated at Wharton and Harvard Business School, she founded Lisa Chen & Associates Therapy and specializes in executives, founders, athletes, physicians, attorneys, and public figures.
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Yes. The practice is structured for discretion: private scheduling, discreet office locations, secure telehealth, and confidential intensives designed for clients whose privacy is non-negotiable.
You don't have to know exactly what's wrong to begin.
If you're ready to look beneath the pattern and understand what needs to change, schedule a consultation to see whether we're a good fit.