Now accepting new clients!
I am excited to be working with Best Self Psych under the supervision of Pam Shaffer (LMFT #91321). If you would like a free 15 minute consultation with me, click the button below.
.
I specialize in relational and intimacy issues, gender & sexuality exploration, attachment issues, and anxiety.
Hi hi! I’m Sarah (she/they).
I am an Associate Marriage & Family Therapist based in Los Angeles. I love working with individuals and couples from the LGBTQIA+ community, the ethical non-monogamy community, the sex worker community, and the BDSM/kink community. Drawing from both my professional and personal experience, my approach to this work is affirming, trauma-informed, and social justice oriented. I specialize in sex therapy, relational and intimacy issues, gender and sexuality exploration, attachment issues, and anxiety.
I am an emotionally focused, attachment-based, sex-positive, feminist post-modern therapist. I believe that both trauma and healing happens in our relationships with others. I also work to assist my clients in recognizing that problems like anxiety and depression are healthy reactions to the broken system in which we all exist, and then I help them to manage and minimize the unwanted symptoms. I view sexuality and gender identity and expression as fluid and unique to each of us, like a fingerprint. I believe that pleasure is both a moral value and an act of resistance, and I am committed to providing a sex-positive space that fosters your own self-discovery.
During my masters in clinical psychology program, I received additional specialized training and certificates in both sex therapy and LGBTQIA+ affirming care, which informs my work as a staff therapist at the LA LGBT Center and my associateship at Best Self Psych. I have also completed the Emotionally Focused Therapy externship, and I use the techniques and principles of EFT with the couples that I treat.
I look forward to supporting your growth, your healing, and your self-exploration in our work together. In my free time, I enjoy the fiber arts, lifting weights, playing accordion, rescuing fur-babies and dismantling the patriarchy and capitalism.
I believe that pleasure is both a moral value and an act of resistance, and I am committed to providing a sex-positive space that fosters self-discovery.
LGBTQIA+
We each stand at the intersection of our sexuality, our gender identity, and our gender expression, and we do so amidst cultural factors and social contexts that shape and inform these identities. Let’s identify the things that are holding you back and explore the unique and beautiful ways you exist in resistance.
ENM/CNM
Whether you call it ethical non-monogamy, consensual non-monogamy, polyamory, or “the lifestyle,” sometimes we need support navigating non-traditional relationship structures. I love working with both individuals and couples, and I will support you in defining and cultivating your ideal relationships.
Sex Therapy
I work with both individuals and couples to help them feel empowered to explore and embrace their relationship with sex. I will support you in moving from goal-oriented sex to pleasure-centered sex. I believe all sex between consenting adults is healthy sex, and should be celebrated and nurtured.
Kink & BDSM
Drawing from my personal and professional experience, I will support you in negotiating power dynamics and issues of consent, navigating the relationship between pain and pleasure, exploring fantasy and role play, and embracing fetishes.
Sarah Bansak
I am an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (AMFT #149232) working under the supervision of Pam Shaffer (LMFT #91321).