Gordana Marić, LMFT

Gordana helps couples, adults, teens, and families break out of painful, repeating cycles and move beyond old trauma responses toward steadier, more grounded ways of relating to themselves and the people they love.

Areas of focus

Couples and relationship therapy, including LGBTQ+ couples
Attachment injuries and complex relational trauma
Trauma-informed and somatic work
Anxiety and emotional distress rooted in early relational experiences
Grief, identity, and life transitions
Multigenerational and family-of-origin patterns
Teens and family therapy

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What it is like to work with Gordana

Gordana's style is warm, direct, and relationally attuned, grounded in somatic awareness and attachment theory, with a lightly irreverent edge when the moment calls for it.

She does not work from a script. Instead, she pays close attention to what is actually happening in the room, between partners, within a family, or between client and therapist, and uses those interactions as valuable clinical information.

Her training in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) provides a foundation for couples and family work, while Compassionate Inquiry and psychodynamic and countertransference-informed practices shape her work with individuals and teens. She is particularly passionate about working with LGBTQ+ individuals and couples and brings an affirming, curious approach to the ways identity, family history, attachment, and relationship dynamics can intersect.

Clients can expect honesty that is not harsh, curiosity that is not detached, and a genuine belief that people are often more capable of change than they have been led to believe.

The long way around

Gordana came to this work by a winding path that continues to shape how she practices today. Before private practice, she spent years doing intensive attachment, trauma, and family systems work with domestic violence survivors and justice-involved populations in community-based residential treatment, people who had often been written off by the systems meant to help them.

That experience taught her not to scare easily, not to pathologize, and to take seriously what it costs someone to ask for help. She later moved into clinical supervision and program development before building her own independent practice in Los Angeles. She has also trained in Compassionate Inquiry under Dr. Gabor Maté.

Gordana's own early life also plays a quiet but meaningful role in why she does this work. Having spent part of her childhood in a country shaped by war, she developed an early understanding of uncertainty, resilience, and the ways difficult experiences can continue to shape people and relationships long after the immediate circumstances have passed. That perspective continues to inform her work helping clients recognize and interrupt patterns they no longer want to carry forward.

Languages

Gordana works with clients in English, Croatian, Bosnian, and Serbian, and has a particular connection to clients from Balkan and South Slavic backgrounds and diaspora communities.

The uncertainty you're feeling right now is not a sign that you're not ready. It is usually a sign that something real is at stake. You don't have to have it figured out before you come in. That is what the first session is for.Gordana Marić, LMFT

Areas of focus

What it is like to work with Gordana

The long way around

Languages

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