Online Therapy for Adoptive Parents in San Diego, CA
Therapy for adoptive parents carrying the weight of parenting that no one prepared you for. Serving San Diego, La Jolla, Del Mar, Carlsbad, Encinitas, and throughout San Diego County.
Specialized Trauma Therapy for Parents on the Foster and Adoption Journey
You thought the hardest part would be getting approved, waiting for the call, finally bringing your child home. You were wrong.
The hardest part is waking up every morning with a knot in your stomach instead of joy, realizing that the depression everyone said would go away after your child arrived has only gotten worse, carrying the weight of a failed adoption that nobody around you seems to understand was a real loss, watching your body go into full panic mode every time your child has a meltdown because their dysregulation triggers something primal in your own nervous system.
You're doing everything right on paper: attending the therapy appointments, reading the books, joining the support groups, smiling for the family photos. But inside, you're breaking. Your chest stays tight, your shoulders live somewhere up near your ears, and you're so exhausted that sleep doesn't even touch it anymore. You're crying in parking lots, snapping at your partner over nothing, avoiding other parents because you can't explain your reality without either lying or saying too much.
The shame of struggling when you "chose this" makes it worse.
More about how I work with adoptive parents here.
How therapy works for adoptive parents
You've probably read every book, taken every training, and tried every parenting strategy the adoption community recommends. You understand why your child hides food in her pillowcase, why he flinches when you raise your voice even though you've never given him a reason to, why bedtime turns into a battle every single night. You have the knowledge, and you're still losing it at 7pm when nothing you've learned seems to work on a child who's screaming that you're not their real parent.
The gap between what you know and what you can do in those moments isn't about effort or education. When your child melts down and your heart starts pounding and your thinking brain goes offline, your body is reacting to months or years of living in crisis mode. You've been absorbing your child's distress day after day, and your brain has started treating every escalation as an emergency, responding before you have a chance to choose how you want to show up.
That's where my work focuses. The therapeutic approaches I use work directly with how your body responds to stress, so the parenting tools you already have can function the way they're supposed to. You won't need to spend weeks retelling your story or narrating every hard moment from the beginning. Much of this work happens at the level of the physical stress response, the racing heart, the tight jaw, the urge to shut down or yell or walk away, and helps it shift so you can stay present when things get hard at home.
I spent nine years working in child welfare and adoption before becoming a therapist. I sat in placement meetings, reviewed case files, and worked alongside families from the very first day a child came home. That means I already understand what food hoarding means, why the anniversary of a placement can bring everything rushing back, and how exhausting it is to love a child who tests your relationship every day because testing is the only way they've ever learned to figure out if someone will stay. So when you describe what's happening in your house, you can go straight to what you need help with.
What changes with specialized, adoption-competent therapy
You'll get through bedtime without dreading it for three hours beforehand. Right now the whole evening is shaped by what's coming. You start tensing up after dinner, bracing for the negotiation, the stalling, the crying, the part where your child says something that hits you right in the chest and you either snap or go numb. After this work, bedtime will still be hard some nights, but your body won't start the countdown at 4pm. You'll walk into their room and handle what comes without the whole night hinging on whether it goes well.
You'll stop going through the motions and start being in the room. There's a version of parenting where you're physically present but emotionally somewhere else, making lunches on autopilot, driving to soccer practice without remembering the drive, sitting next to your child on the couch while your mind runs through everything that went wrong today and everything that could go wrong tomorrow. When the numbness starts to lift, you'll catch yourself laughing at something your kid said and realize you weren't forcing it. You'll notice the weight of their head on your shoulder and feel something warm instead of nothing at all.
You'll ask for help without the voice in your head telling you it proves you shouldn't have done this. There's a specific kind of shame that belongs to adoptive parents, the kind that says you signed up for this, you were evaluated and approved, you told everyone how ready you were, and now you're drowning. That shame keeps you quiet when you should be asking for support. When it loosens its grip, you'll call your sister and say you need a night off without rehearsing the justification first. You'll tell your partner the truth about how your day went instead of the edited version. You'll walk into the IEP meeting as your child's advocate instead of as someone trying to prove they deserve to be a parent.
You'll hold the grief about the family you pictured without it coloring everything else. Maybe the grief is about the biological child you couldn't have, or the fantasy of what adoption would look like versus what it looks like, or the relationship with your child that you imagined during the home study that doesn't match reality. You'll feel that sadness when it comes without it leaking into the rest of your day. A hard morning won't become a hard week. You'll sit with the feelings when they surface and still be present for your child's school play that evening instead of watching it through a fog.
You'll wake up without the dread already waiting for you. Right now your first conscious thought most mornings is some version of "what's today going to bring" and your body answers before your mind does, tight shoulders, clenched jaw, heart already running faster than it should be at 6am. After this work, you'll open your eyes and have a few seconds of quiet before the day starts. You'll pour your coffee and drink it while it's still hot. You'll have enough in the tank by the end of the day to read a chapter of something you chose for yourself instead of collapsing into your phone.
You'll make decisions about your own life without guilt telling you it's selfish. Somewhere along the way you stopped being a person with your own interests and became a full-time crisis manager. You used to have friends you saw regularly, a career you cared about, things you did on weekends that had nothing to do with parenting. After this work, you'll sign up for the thing you've been putting off, keep the dinner plans you made, and say yes to the work opportunity without the constant background calculation of whether wanting something for yourself takes something from your child.
You'll notice the good moments instead of just surviving the hard ones. Right now the hard moments are so consuming that the good ones barely register, or they register and you immediately brace for whatever's coming next because the good stretches never seem to last. When your body learns that it doesn't have to stay on high alert every minute of the day, you'll catch a quiet moment with your child and just be in it. Saturday morning pancakes will feel like Saturday morning pancakes instead of the calm before the next storm.
Specialized adoption therapy for adoptive & foster parents in San Diego and Southern California
Online adoption therapy in San Diego, including La Jolla, Del Mar, Carlsbad, Encinitas, Poway, Scripps Ranch, Rancho Bernardo, Chula Vista, and communities throughout San Diego County and all of California.
Meet Summer
I work with adoptive parents throughout San Diego County because I understand that adoption doesn't just affect your child, it profoundly impacts you.
I’ve been licensed to independently practice in California since 2015 (CA LCSW #68507). I have 9 years of experience in child welfare and adoption and I am C.A.S.E. registered (Center for Adoption Support and Education) and completed Adoption Competency training through the National Adoption Competency Mental Health Training Initiative (NTI).
I specialize in supporting adoptive parents through their own mental health challenges: post-adoption depression, secondary trauma, and the grief and burnout that comes with this journey.
Using specialized trauma approaches, I help you heal from failed adoptions, process your own trauma responses, and find sustainable ways to manage the ongoing stress without losing yourself in the process.
Therapy Services Offered
Individual Weekly Therapy
Weekly therapy with me is a steady, collaborative space where you don’t have to perform, explain everything perfectly, or rush toward solutions. We’ll move at a pace that respects your nervous system, blending thoughtful conversation with evidence-based trauma approaches when helpful, so insight and relief can happen together. Some weeks may feel reflective and grounding, others more active and processing-focused—but always intentional and contained. Over time, clients often notice they feel more regulated, more confident in their responses, and less controlled by patterns that once felt automatic.
Intensives
Therapy intensives are longer, focused sessions designed to help you go deeper without the stop-and-start feeling of weekly therapy. In a 2- or 4-hour intensive, we create a carefully paced container that allows time for assessment, preparation, processing, and grounding—without rushing your system. These sessions often incorporate trauma-focused modalities such as EMDR, Brainspotting, IFS, or somatic work, with built-in breaks and regulation throughout. Clients often choose intensives when they want meaningful movement around a specific issue or feel ready for concentrated, intentional healing work.
Logistics
50-minute Sessions are $250.
I also offer 90-minute sessions for $375 and intensive sessions (2-4 hours) ranging from $500 to $1000 for people who want to work intensively.
I don't take insurance directly, but I can provide superbills for out-of-network reimbursement if your plan covers that.
I am available early mornings, evenings, and weekends. I provide services online only.
Self-Schedule or Contact Me Below
For the quickest and most confidential option, you’re encouraged to book directly into my calendar by clicking the Self-Schedule Here button below. That button will take you to my HIPAA-compliant calendar where you may request an appointment. Once I confirm your appointment request (typically within 24 hours), I will email you the new client forms to digitally sign. Then, we will meet on your scheduled day.
If you have questions prior to scheduling, you can also use the contact form below, and I’ll reply within 48 business hours. If you don’t see a reply, please check your junk/spam folder.
I look forward to hearing from you!
— Summer Verhines, LCSW
Contact Summer
Frequently Asked Questions
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All sessions are conducted online through secure, HIPAA-compliant telehealth. You can meet with me from anywhere in California - your home, your office, your car in the Target parking lot if that's the only private space you have. For San Diego parents juggling work schedules, therapy appointments, school meetings, and everything else, virtual therapy means no commute time and maximum flexibility with scheduling.
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Traditional talk therapy helps you understand your thoughts, process feelings, and gain insight into patterns - which has value but often isn't enough when trauma is stored in your body and nervous system. The specialized approaches I use - EMDR, Brainspotting, Accelerated Resolution Therapy, Internal Family Systems, and Somatic therapy - work directly with your nervous system to release trauma at a deeper level. These aren't just coping strategies to manage symptoms; they actually help your brain and body process and resolve traumatic experiences so they stop controlling your present life. Many adoptive parents find that years of traditional therapy helped them understand their struggles but didn't actually relieve them - body-based trauma work is what finally creates real change.
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It depends on what you're working on and which therapeutic approaches we use together. Accelerated Resolution Therapy is specifically designed for short-term focused work - many parents experience significant relief within just 3-5 sessions when addressing specific traumatic memories like a failed adoption, placement disruption, or a particular crisis. Other parents work with me for several months to process multiple layers of adoption-related trauma: the infertility grief, the failed placements, the post-adoption depression, the secondary trauma from their child's behaviors. Traditional cognitive-behavioral talk therapy often takes years to see meaningful change - these body-based trauma methods are significantly more efficient and effective. We'll discuss your specific goals in our first session and create a realistic timeline based on what you're dealing with.
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Absolutely. I work with adoptive parents at every single stage of this journey: waiting to be matched with a birth mother, supporting a birth mother through pregnancy and wondering if she'll change her mind, recovering from a failed placement that fell through, navigating the uncertainty of foster-to-adopt, newly home with your child and struggling with the reality, or years into parenting and realizing you need help. Your struggles are completely valid regardless of where you are in the adoption process - you don't have to wait until everything is "official" to get support for what you're going through.
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I'm a private-pay provider because it allows me to actually focus on what helps you heal rather than what insurance companies will reimburse, which is often limited to approaches that don't work well for adoption trauma. However, I can provide detailed documentation called Superbills for out-of-network reimbursement if your insurance plan offers that benefit. Many adoptive parents discover that investing in specialized trauma therapy with someone who actually understands adoption saves them years of ineffective but insurance-covered talk therapy that doesn't address the root issues and leaves them still struggling.