Julie Rider, LMFT

Julie Rider is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 25 years of clinical experience. She works in California and focuses on anxiety, depression, stress, and life transitions. Julie uses clear, practical methods to help people get through hard times and build new coping skills.

Her approach is straightforward and down-to-earth. Sessions are conversational and goal-oriented. She teaches parenting skills from lived experience as a parent of adult children, and she helps people strengthen relationships and handle family-related strain.

Julie often uses cognitive behavioral therapy to help people notice unhelpful thoughts and try small behavior changes. She pairs that with client-centered listening to make sure each person feels heard and respected. Mindfulness techniques and solution-focused steps are used to build short-term relief and useful routines.

She also supports people dealing with grief, trauma and abuse, sleep problems, self-esteem issues, career stress, and compassion fatigue. Additional areas of focus include adoption and foster care, aging and geriatric concerns, autism and Asperger Syndrome, hospice and end-of-life issues, multicultural concerns, and postpartum depression.

Julie aims to help people find practical strategies that fit their daily life. She emphasizes small, manageable steps that lead to longer-term change. The session tone is encouraging and collaborative, with a focus on skills people can use between meetings.

How Julie’s approaches translate to online therapy

Julie commonly uses cognitive behavioral therapy to help people identify patterns of thinking that increase anxiety or low mood, and then test small behavior changes to feel better. This approach often helps with sleep, worry, and coping with life transitions.

She also practices client-centered therapy, which focuses on active listening and building a trusting therapeutic relationship. That approach is useful when someone needs to feel heard before working on practical changes. Mindfulness techniques are woven in to teach simple breathing and grounding exercises that reduce immediate stress and improve focus.

Finding the right approach is part of the work together. Julie collaborates with each person to decide which methods fit their goals and daily life. She adjusts strategies over time based on what is helpful and what isn’t, so the plan stays practical and realistic.

Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video is useful for full sessions and face-to-face connection. Phone sessions can fit into a busy day or use less bandwidth. Live chat and text messaging make brief check-ins and skill practice easier between appointments. These options make it simpler to keep therapy consistent around work, caregiving, and other commitments.