Elena Balashova-Shamis , CA Psychologist PSY20104

Elena Balashova-Shamis is a California psychologist with over 23 years of clinical experience. She holds the CA Psychologist credential PSY20104 and offers thoughtful, individualized care for people facing stress, anxiety, depression, grief, trauma, and relationship challenges.

She uses an integrative style that draws on long-term psychodynamic ideas alongside practical techniques. Sessions are focused on understanding patterns that cause distress and on testing small changes in everyday life. Conversations are direct and gentle, aimed at helping people feel clearer about their choices.

Elena regularly teaches at local universities and medical programs, which keeps her connected to current research and clinical discussion. That academic work informs how she thinks about complex issues like attachment, abandonment, and dissociation without losing sight of day-to-day needs.

She also works with concerns related to body image, eating and food-related issues, caregiver stress, communication and commitment problems, and recovery after disaster or first responder exposure. Gender dysphoria and forgiveness are additional areas she addresses when they come up in therapy.

Sessions are offered in English and Russian. Elena provides therapy through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging to accommodate different schedules and preferences.

Approaches and Online Care That Fit Your Life

Elena uses integrative, evidence-informed methods to help people understand and change patterns that cause distress. One approach draws on psychodynamic ideas to look at long-standing patterns in relationships and attachment; this helps when concerns feel tied to early experiences or repeated relationship difficulties. Another set of techniques focuses on practical behavioral work that targets anxiety, stress, and depressive symptoms by teaching concrete ways to manage day-to-day reactions and improve coping.

Finding the right approach is collaborative. Elena will work with each person to decide which methods feel most useful based on their goals and preferences. She adjusts the plan as therapy progresses, combining insight-focused work with practical exercises when that makes sense.

Online therapy options include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging to fit different routines. Video calls support face-to-face conversation, phone sessions require less bandwidth, live chat can be quicker check-ins, and text messaging lets people send thoughts between sessions. These formats make it easier to schedule sessions around work, caregiving, or other commitments while keeping therapy consistent and accessible.