Elle Michelle, LMFT

Elle Michel is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist from Santa Monica, California, with a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and a Bachelor’s degree in Cultural Anthropology.

After graduating from Antioch University with her master’s degree in 2011, Elle began practicing as a child, adult, and family therapist at community clinic in Glendale, California, where she delivered intensive field-based therapy in Spanish to the Latino population of the San Gabriel and San Fernando valleys. There, she worked primarily with teens and their families and employed various evidence-based practices, including Managing and Adapting Practice (MAP), Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Seeking Safety. As a treatment team leader, she developed comprehensive treatment plans and led and managed teams of psychiatrists, counselors, case managers, and social workers to ensure that clients received services tailored to their individual needs. She also received extensive training in crisis management, cultural competency, and substance abuse treatment.

Looking to move in the direction of focusing primarily on treating complex trauma and borderline personality disorder (BPD), in 2014 Elle began working at a leading Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) treatment provider. While there, she gained additional training in the treatment of addiction, traumatic stress, disordered eating, and personality disorders. She also developed group therapy curricula and led therapy groups focused on relapse prevention, cognitive behavioral therapy, attachment theory and relationship skill building, and treatment of disordered eating and body image issues. In May 2015, Elle joined the team at an intensive outpatient treatment center in West Los Angeles specializing in substance dependence and dual diagnosis treatment, where she provided group and individual therapy. During this time, she earned additional training in attachment-focused Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Trauma Resiliency Model (TRM), DBT, and Brainspotting. In 2018, she began to focus exclusively on her private practice.

Elle maintains a private practice in West Los Angeles where she specializes in the treatment of trauma and BPD through a strengths- and skills-based, insight-oriented, and somatic approach. She has in-depth experience treating clients struggling with high-risk behaviors such as substance abuse, self-harm, and suicidality/homicidality, and she values the use of mindfulness-based practices to assist clients in reducing anxiety and increasing self-efficacy.