We understand how frustrating and lonely it can feel when you believe you’re unable to cope. We know you may feel that you’ve tried everything, and are worried that a change isn’t possible.
At Healista, we believe everybody has the power to make a change and cope in a healthy, lasting way. Like the dandelion, we believe every person is capable of standing strong and proud against hardships, and to thrive in even the most difficult or unsuspecting situations.
They may just need a little help to get there — and that help looks different for everyone.
That’s why our approach to psychotherapy is founded on the belief that a person (and their mental health) is much more than their individual experiences, behaviors, and narratives. We all move through the world within systems — our families, our cultures, and the groups we associate with — and deep wellness helps us reach positive change in ourselves and communities.
Healista prioritizes the whole self when it comes to our clients’ emotional healing. We work with our clients to understand the bigger picture of their wellbeing, so they can find clarity, heal trauma and move forward in their own life.
meet our team
Elena Gonzalez, LCSW
Founder & Psychotherapist
Elena is a licensed psychotherapist with 20+ years of experience working with adults, children, teens, and families. In addition to running her own practice, she has worked with outpatient mental health clinics, consulted at local schools, coordinated clinical programs, and supervised interns.
Elena believes in ‘giving it to you straight’, yet always wrapped in warmth and love. She understands that human connection is raw and messy, and has dedicated her career to helping her clients embrace and find peace within that chaos.
Using a blend of eastern and western philosophies, she takes an instinctual and intuitive approach to therapy. Elena infuses her approach with trauma informed, resiliency and attachment focused principles. She incorporates various culturally-defined healing practices as well as psychotherapy techniques and somatic therapies, such as Trauma Resiliency Model (TRM), Dynamic Attachment Repatterning experience (DARE), and Brainspotting. She encourages her clients to ‘go with the flow’ and develop a deep, aligned understanding of what they need at any given moment, co-creating skills and tools they need to handle anything life throws their way.
Caitlin Musick
Administrative Director
After growing up in a small town in Indiana, Caitlin relocated to California for the sunshine and work opportunities. Her background is in television production, and she has worked for PBS, Nickelodeon, and Showtime. She pivoted from the entertainment industry to pursue holistic medicine and gain a deeper knowledge of different wellness modalities. Caitlin likes to practice Tai Chi, Yoga, and Qigong in addition to martial arts training to enrich her studies and share these practices with others. When she’s not at work, she loves to see comedy shows and perform improv. She is the backbone of the administrative team for Healista Holistic Psychotherapy.
Andrea Solanki
Energy Healer
Originally from North Wales, Andrea is a Reiki Master, Intuitive, Energy Healer and Aromatherapist. With over 20 years of experience, she has helped clients to clear spiritual, emotional and physical blockages, healing past wounds to help bring about peace and balance whilst facilitating her clients own bodies to heal themselves.
Andrea often uses crystals and a combination of energetic disciplines to create a unique, personalized energetic experience, working with Spirit Guides to detect the location of blockages within the body’s energy field and re-balancing them with positive healing energy.
Andrea also teaches Reiki and her workshops, for both adults and children, are highly sought after. In attuning children to the Reiki energy, she has helped many work through grief, severe anxiety, depression, low self esteem and helped children with ADHD find coping mechanisms. To book a private healing session or a workshop please contact us below.
Robert Bahedry
Coach & Certified Breathwork Practitioner
-Founder Breathe with Robert LLC
Robert was born in England … grew up in Iraq, Nigeria, & England … and lived and worked in the UAE… he is now based In Los Angeles! He is a certified meditation practitioner in the somatic, dynamic, active, 3-part breathing technique known as ‘Breathwork.’ This centuries-old, pranayama yoga, self-healing technology, is a guided meditation practice which quickly encourages a relaxed, connected and transformational breath work experience.
Robert discovered this profound practice in 2009 and it “changed his life in an instant.”
He has invested his life in understanding the human condition and how we can all find the balance within living an extraordinary and meaningful life. Robert’s passion lies in giving committed leaders the tools necessary to have consistent breakthroughs on their journey of self-development.
Robert shares that he has had his fair share of struggles and suffering, however, he learned the greatest lessons from the obstacles that life provided him. He devotes his life to his journey with this work and greatly values being a vehicle to his client’s personal path of self-awareness and self-compassion. Robert is humbled by how the healing power of breathwork, accelerates this clients mental, physical, and spiritual capacities. He is honored to support and witness them as they reach new heights and achieve the changes that they have always desired.
meet our team
Jill Drenth
Licensed Psychotherapist
Jill enjoys helping the helpers, like you. She believes we all have the tools we need, already inside us, we just need a little nudge to access it. Are you getting tightness and tension in your body, restlessness, or pain in your body but your primary care doctor says there is nothing wrong with your physical health? Don’t wait until things get too heavy and unmanageable to seek out help. Learning about how stress affects the brain-body connection, developing new coping strategies, and specialized short term modalities, can help reduce this suffering and get you feeling better, sooner rather than later. Jill uses both EMDR and TRM to help you process both the traumas from your work and the old traumas that have hung around too long, that have been holding you back. Jill works through a resiliency-informed lens with first responders, physicians, therapists, & teachers who need to start caring for themselves by tapping into their own resilience, so they can feel the relief they so often provide to others.
Cleandra Waldron, MS, AMFT - #125069
Associate Marriage and Family Therapist
Cleandra believes that a person is more than the sum of their parts. She received her Master of Science Degree in Counseling Psychology from California State University Long Beach. Cleandra immediately began working with clients in community mental health, focusing on couples with a history of trauma. She feels it is vital to support the Mind/Body connection to heal the “whole person.” Cleandra maintains that our bodies are like time-machines, propelling us forward into the future or back to the past with a single thought, sensory experience, or physical movement. Cleandra believes that the body is an integral part of facilitating the cellular change that is necessary to achieve personal transformation. Besides her experience, Cleandra looks to the work of Sue Johnson, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, Dr. Gabor Mate, and her clients for continued growth and inspiration.
Anisa Kassim
Licensed Acupuncturist & Public Health Educator
Anisa Kassim is Public Health Educator and Licensed Acupuncturist and has worked in the field of health for over 20 years. She started her career at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the field of International Public Health. She worked worldwide, assisting practitioners in the development of their health programs and training health workers on effective, cost-effective and minimally invasive techniques for the care of individuals in their community and villages. She chose to further her education in Chinese and Ayurvedic Medicine because of its proven efficacy in preventing diseases and helping improve the quality of life of both adults and children. She is a part-time professor in the area of integrative health and herbs.
Anisa is an Acupuncturist who specializes in Pre/Postnatal wellness, Pediatric Acupuncture and Facial Rejuvenation. She has helped clients of all ages improve their digestion, decrease pain, improve sleep, mental health, trauma and manage symptoms associated with chronic diseases, She closely works with women during their pregnancy and postnatal years and assists families in maintaining their health and well-being. Anisa creates customized and holistic health strategies based on the clients needs utilizing Chinese and Ayurvedic modalities including cupping, acupuncture, non-needling techniques for children, Reiki and is a trained and certified herbalist in both Western and Eastern herbology.
contact
2510 Main St. Suite 201
Santa Monica, CA 90405
hello@healista.com
(424) 570-1067