Meet Ms. Lauresha Hawkins

For the person who wants to stop fighting every difficult thought or emotion and start moving toward what matters most.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an evidence-based approach that helps you develop a healthier relationship with difficult thoughts, emotions, and experiences while taking meaningful action aligned with your values.

ACT focuses on mindfulness, acceptance, self-awareness, values, and psychological flexibility. Rather than trying to eliminate every uncomfortable feeling, therapy helps you learn how to make room for difficult experiences without allowing them to control your choices.

Treatment is individualized and may support concerns such as anxiety, depression, trauma, stress, perfectionism, life transitions, and feeling stuck.

ACT services are available through secure telehealth throughout California and Alaska.

For the person who wants to better understand the connection between thoughts, emotions, and behaviors and develop healthier ways of responding to life’s challenges.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a well-established, evidence-based approach that helps clients identify unhelpful thinking patterns, challenge distorted beliefs, and build more balanced and effective coping strategies.

Treatment is collaborative, practical, and tailored to each client’s age, experiences, strengths, and goals.

The focus is on building skills that support meaningful, lasting change both inside and outside of the therapy room.

For couples seeking stronger communication, deeper connection, and healthier relationship patterns.

Couples therapy provides a supportive space to address communication challenges, conflict, trust concerns, emotional disconnection, boundaries, intimacy, life transitions, and the impact of past experiences on the relationship.

I provide affirming care with a particular focus on LGBTQ+ and queer relationships, including identity, coming out, family acceptance, chosen family, minority stress, and relationship dynamics.

Therapy is collaborative and focuses on the relationship rather than identifying one partner as “the problem.” Treatment may include communication skills, conflict resolution, emotion regulation, boundary-setting, trust repair, and psychoeducation.

Couples therapy is available through secure telehealth in California by referral only and is offered on a private-pay basis. Insurance is not accepted for couples therapy.n

For the person navigating intense emotions, mood instability, self-harming behaviors, relationship challenges, or difficulty managing distress.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is an evidence-based approach commonly used to support emotional dysregulation, mood disorders, self-harming behaviors, and Borderline Personality Disorder.

As a DBT-trained clinician, treatment may incorporate the four core DBT skill areas: mindfulness, emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness.

The goal is to help clients better understand their emotions, respond more effectively during difficult moments, strengthen relationships, and build practical skills that support greater stability and overall well-being.

For the person, couple, or family seeking therapy tailored to their unique needs, strengths, and goals.

Mental Wellness University uses an eclectic, integrative approach that combines evidence-based therapies such as CBT, DBT, Motivational Interviewing, trauma-informed care, family systems, mindfulness, strengths-based therapy, and Solution-Focused Brief Therapy.

Treatment is tailored to the person—not the model—with a focus on building insight, practical skills, and meaningful, lasting change.

For the person navigating obsessive thoughts, compulsive behaviors, fears, or anxiety that can feel difficult to control.

Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is an evidence-based approach commonly used in the treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and related anxiety concerns. ERP helps clients gradually face feared thoughts, situations, or triggers while reducing the compulsive responses that reinforce anxiety over time.

Treatment is collaborative, paced carefully, and tailored to each client’s readiness and goals.

The focus is on building tolerance for discomfort, reducing avoidance and compulsive patterns, and increasing confidence in responding to anxiety without relying on rituals or reassurance.

For clients who desire to integrate faith, spirituality, or religious experiences into the healing process.

Faith and spirituality can shape how we understand hope, identity, purpose, relationships, and healing. They can also be connected to experiences of shame, grief, fear, conflict, or trauma.

For clients who choose to incorporate Christian faith or spiritual beliefs into therapy, I provide evidence-based clinical care with space for spiritual reflection. This may include biblical principles, prayer or faith-based coping when desired, spiritual identity, church experiences, questions of purpose, and the impact of faith on emotional well-being.

Therapy may also address religious trauma, spiritual abuse, church hurt, faith transitions, shame-based teachings, identity-related rejection, and painful experiences within religious communities.

Faith integration is never imposed or assumed. It is incorporated only when it aligns with your beliefs, preferences, and treatment goals.

My role is not to replace your relationship with God, clergy, church, or faith community. Rather, I provide licensed clinical care while honoring the beliefs, questions, and spiritual experiences that are meaningful to you.

Faith-based and spiritually integrated counseling is available through secure telehealth for clients throughout California and Alaska.

For the client or family navigating relationship conflict, parenting challenges, adolescent behavioral concerns, communication difficulties, shifting family roles, or the lasting impact of intergenerational patterns and trauma.

Family systems therapy recognizes that people do not exist in isolation. Communication styles, family dynamics, life experiences, expectations, and roles can all influence how individuals relate to one another.

Treatment focuses on helping clients and families better understand the patterns contributing to conflict, disconnection, or ongoing stress while strengthening communication, healthier relationships, and more intentional ways of responding to one another.

At Mental Wellness University, therapy is also an opportunity for education. As clients and families gain a deeper understanding of one another’s experiences, emotions, developmental needs, and communication styles, they can build greater empathy, connection, confidence, and lasting change.

For the person who wants to better understand the different parts of themselves, especially when emotions, beliefs, or internal conflicts feel difficult to manage.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a strengths-based, trauma-informed approach that views the mind as having different “parts,” each shaped by experiences and often trying to protect the person in some way.

Treatment focuses on increasing self-awareness, understanding protective patterns, reducing internal conflict, and developing a more compassionate relationship with the parts of oneself that may carry fear, pain, shame, anger, or responsibility.

The goal is to help clients respond to themselves with greater curiosity, balance, and self-compassion while supporting meaningful emotional healing and growth.

For the person who wants to become more aware of their thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, and experiences without immediately reacting to them or becoming overwhelmed.

Mindfulness is thoughtfully integrated throughout treatment, particularly within Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and other evidence-based approaches. It helps create space between what happens and how you respond.

Treatment focuses on strengthening present-moment awareness, emotional regulation, intentional decision-making, and self-compassion.

At Mental Wellness University, mindfulness is more than a relaxation technique. It is a practical skill that can help clients respond to life’s challenges with greater clarity, confidence, and intention while supporting meaningful growth throughout the therapeutic process.

For the person who feels uncertain, stuck, or conflicted about making a change and wants support building motivation and confidence at a realistic pace.

Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a collaborative, evidence-based approach that helps clients explore uncertainty, identify personal reasons for change, and strengthen confidence in their ability to move forward.

MI may be especially helpful when navigating life transitions, behavior change, substance use concerns, health-related goals, or other situations where change feels difficult or overwhelming.

Rather than telling you what you should do, treatment focuses on identifying your strengths, exploring barriers, and building on your own motivation to create meaningful and sustainable progress.

For the person, couple, or family seeking care that respects culture, identity, lived experience, and the many influences that shape mental and emotional well-being.

Cultural sensitivity and multiethnic care are deeply embedded in the work of Mental Wellness University. Care recognizes that race, ethnicity, culture, faith, gender, sexual orientation, family traditions, socioeconomic experiences, systemic inequities, and generational history can all influence how a person understands themselves, relationships, healing, and mental health.

As a multiethnic African American, Christian, queer woman in a same-sex relationship, the importance of being seen as a whole person is both professionally and personally understood. These lived experiences inform a commitment to creating space where clients do not have to separate, minimize, or defend the different parts of who they are in order to receive meaningful care.

At the same time, lived experience does not equal expertise in someone else’s story. Cultural humility means remaining curious, teachable, reflective, and committed to continued learning. Education, consultation, self-reflection, and ongoing growth are essential parts of providing ethical and culturally responsive care.

Treatment creates room to explore culture, faith, identity, discrimination, belonging, family expectations, generational differences, relationships, and other experiences that may affect mental health.

At Mental Wellness University, the goal is not to claim to know everything about every culture or identity. The goal is to listen, learn, honor each person’s lived experience, and provide care grounded in dignity, respect, humility, and intention.

For the parent or caregiver and child who may be navigating behavioral concerns, emotional dysregulation, difficulty following directions, frequent conflict, or challenges strengthening connection at home.

Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) is an evidence-based approach that helps caregivers strengthen their relationship with their child while building effective, consistent parenting skills.

Treatment focuses on improving communication, increasing positive interactions, strengthening emotional connection, and helping caregivers respond to challenging behaviors with greater confidence and consistency.

The goal is to support a healthier parent-child relationship while helping children develop greater emotional and behavioral regulation.

For the person who feels overwhelmed, stuck, or unsure how to move forward when facing difficult decisions, ongoing stressors, or everyday challenges.

Problem-Solving Therapy is a structured, evidence-based approach that helps clients break problems into manageable steps, identify realistic options, evaluate possible solutions, and build confidence in decision-making.

Treatment focuses on strengthening coping, organization, critical thinking, and the ability to approach challenges with greater clarity and intention.

The goal is not to eliminate every problem, but to build practical skills that can be used long after therapy ends.

For the person who wants to focus on strengths, possibilities, and practical steps toward meaningful change.

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) is an evidence-based, strengths-based approach that helps clients identify what is already working, build on existing strengths, and develop practical solutions that support their goals.

Rather than focusing only on problems, SFBT encourages clients to recognize resilience, clarify what they want their future to look like, and identify small, realistic steps that can move them forward.

Treatment is collaborative and tailored to the client’s needs, goals, and stage of change, with an emphasis on creating achievable and lasting progress.

I approach every client from a strengths-based perspective—the belief that every individual possesses unique strengths, resilience, and personal resources that can serve as the foundation for healing and growth. Even during life's most difficult seasons, those strengths are often still present, waiting to be recognized, developed, and strengthened.

A strengths-based approach focuses on identifying what is already working, building upon existing abilities, and empowering individuals to use their own values, experiences, and capabilities to navigate life's challenges. Rather than defining people by a diagnosis or their struggles, I believe therapy should help individuals recognize their potential while developing the knowledge, insight, and practical skills needed to create meaningful, lasting change.

For the person navigating the lasting effects of trauma, including childhood adversity, interpersonal trauma, post-traumatic stress, and systemic or environmental stressors.

Trauma-informed care recognizes how experiences can affect the brain, body, emotions, relationships, and daily functioning.

Treatment focuses on understanding how past experiences may continue to influence present thoughts, emotions, and responses while building safety, coping skills, emotional regulation, and greater self-awareness.

Care is individualized and may integrate CBT, DBT, Motivational Interviewing, mindfulness, psychoeducation, and other evidence-based approaches to support meaningful, lasting healing.