Jennifer Gold, PhD, LMFT
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist
Registered California Board of Behavioral Sciences Number: LMFT 124091
Top 3 Specialties: Parent/Child Conflict, Anxiety/Depression, Grief
Pronouns: She/Her
Location: Arcadia, California, Online
Language: English
Fee: $195
Sliding Scale: Available
Insurance: Cigna, Aetna, & can provide superbill for PPO plans
Accepting New Clients: Yes
Client Focus: Families, Parents, Children, Adults navigating life transitions
Specialties: Parent/child conflict, anxiety, depression, grief, life transitions, family communication, emotional regulation
Treatment Methods: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), EMDR
Jennifer Gold is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist who creates a warm, supportive environment where families can navigate life's inevitable changes with greater understanding and flexibility.
She specializes in helping families move beyond patterns of conflict and disconnection toward deeper communication, mutual support, and adaptive responses to life's challenges. With particular expertise in parent-child relationships, anxiety and depression within family systems, and grief processing, Jennifer sees each family that seeks her support as already demonstrating courage and strength by taking the first step toward positive change.
Her therapeutic approach integrates Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). This comprehensive toolkit allows her to help family members recognize feelings as they arise and develop healthy ways to meet their needs while strengthening their connections with one another. Jennifer believes deeply in helping families move from reactivity to responsiveness, creating new patterns of interaction that honor each person's experience while building the whole family's capacity for resilience and growth.
With a Master's degree in Marriage and Family Therapy and specialized training in Emotionally Focused Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Jennifer brings robust clinical expertise to her therapeutic practice. Her foundational training at the Ronald McDonald House at Children's Hospital Los Angeles shaped her understanding that supporting the entire family system is the most effective way to help each individual navigate difficult experiences. This early exposure to family-centered care continues to inform her holistic approach to therapy. As a faculty member in the MFT program at the University of Southern California, she also contributes to training the next generation of family therapists.
Outside the therapy room, Jennifer embraces simple pleasures that reflect her belief in the importance of connection and discovery. She enjoys getting lost in mystery novels, savoring good chocolate, and tending to her front yard garden, which serves as much as a way to connect with neighbors as it does to cultivate plants. Her approach to gardening mirrors her therapeutic philosophy: creating the right conditions for growth takes patience, attention, and genuine care for each unique element while nurturing the beauty of the whole.
Jennifer's foundational experience at Children's Hospital Los Angeles equipped her with a deep understanding of how to support entire family systems through incredibly challenging circumstances, informing her family-centered approach to all therapeutic work.
She excels at helping families identify and interrupt unhelpful reactive patterns while building new skills for responding to each other with greater understanding and flexibility.
Jennifer creates a therapeutic environment where family members feel genuinely heard and validated while being gently guided toward more adaptive ways of connecting and communicating.
"We are social creatures, wired to prioritize belonging and relationships. When families feel disconnected, everyone suffers. On the other hand, when families come together to work on their problems, just showing up is a huge step in the right direction: what has been ignored is now being addressed, and, as the saying goes, 'if you can mention it, you can manage it.' I love working with families because it is an opportunity to harness the love and commitment that's always already there, even if it feels buried beneath layers of frustration, resentment, and fear. Family therapy is a real opportunity to change dynamics and help each person thrive."
- Jennifer Gold