Claire Dawson, MA, AMFT is an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist based in Los Angeles whose work sits at the intersection of addiction recovery, trauma healing, and nervous system regulation. She earned her Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy from Pepperdine University and her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Southern Methodist University, where she also contributed to couples and health research.
Claire’s clinical experience spans community mental health and residential treatment settings, where she has supported adolescents and adults navigating acute stabilization, long-term recovery, and the complex layers that often underlie both. She draws on Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Internal Family Systems (IFS), and psychoeducation informed by Polyvagal Theory to help clients understand the connection between their minds, bodies, and nervous systems — and to find safety within themselves, often for the first time.
She believes that healing doesn’t happen from the neck up. Many of the patterns that keep people stuck — in substances, in relationships, in survival mode — are rooted in the body’s attempt to protect. Claire’s work gently brings those patterns into awareness, so clients can begin to respond rather than react, and build a life that feels like their own.
Claire works with teens and adults and welcomes clients navigating addiction and substance use, trauma and PTSD, anxiety, depression, and relationship challenges.
