Experience

Dr. Catherine Barrett

catherine@cbpsychological.com

Dr. Catherine Barrett is a licensed Clinical Forensic Psychologist, based out of Los Angeles, California. She first gained clinical experience after graduating from University of Southern California in 2009, with a Masters degree in Marriage and Family Therapy. Through her training and experience, she has worked with marginalized communities, committed to social justice in mental health, and has developed a practice that is not only cross-culturally competent, but affirmative.

Clinical training and populations include addiction recovery, LGBTQ+, domestic and intimate partner violence, chronic mental illness, and narcissistic personality disorder. Dr. Barrett specializes in narcissistic abuse recovery.

Following a Masters degree in Marriage and Family Therapy, Dr. Barrett continued her commitment to social justice and psychology in the law by obtaining a doctorate of psychology in Clinical Forensic Psychology. She graduated from Alliant International University’s California School of Forensic Studies in 2014. A significant amount of her training was in risk assessment, evaluation, and treatment of sex offenders, sexually violent predators, mentally disordered offenders, and individuals found not guilty by reason of insanity. Dr. Barrett completed her Pre-Doctoral internship at the San Francisco Forensic Institute where she evaluated, treated, and ran psychological assessments on sex offenders and sexually violent predators. Dr. Barrett was first certified with the Sex Offender Management Board at this time.

Dr. Barrett has performed a variety of clinical and forensic assessments, including psycho-educational evaluations, risk assessment, and psychological evaluations for court. Dr. Barrett has been clinically trained and certified to administer the ABEL-Assessment of sexual interest and the STABLE-2007, which measures potential risk for future violence. She has also assisted Dr. Charles Flinton in administering the Penile Plethysmograph (PPG) to forensic hospital patients at Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino, California. Dr. Barrett has spent a significant amount of time providing group and individual therapy, as well as risk assessment to the sex offending population. Additionally, she has worked for Conditional Release Programs; such as , Gateways Forensic Hospital and MHM services. Dr. Barrett provided treatment, psychological evaluation, and risk assessment to those being offered conditional release due to either a mentally disordered offense or found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Dr. Barrett has experience testifying in court cases related to revocation of outpatient status to patients on conditional release, as well as expert and fact witnessing for both civil and criminal court. Dr. Barrett has served as an expert witness in the family court system, peer reviewing custodial evaluations, and testifying on the validity of such evaluations. Dr. Barrett serves as a psychotherapist to teens, young adults, and adults; primarily in the areas of emotional and sexual abuse victimization, LGBTQ+, and addiction. Dr. Barrett serves as part-time faculty for the University of Southern California where she teaches Law and Ethics, Child/Elder Abuse and Domestic Violence, Clinical Assessment, and serves as a field work supervisor.

Olivia Russak

Olivia@cbpsychological.com

Olivia Russak is a Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist, working in Los Angeles. She completed her Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy at the University of Southern California in 2021.

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” - Rumi

The decision to seek therapy takes an enormous amount of courage, and marks a new stage of one’s life. I welcome you to this stage, and thank you humbly for considering me to join you on this journey. Whether you’ve been in therapy before or this is your first time, the relationship we develop will be a new experience for both of us.

I deeply value my clients’ inherent power and autonomy. It's my goal to co-create a space that allows us to work together as equals, so that within our therapeutic relationship you feel safe to use your true voice. Through this safe, trusting, egalitarian relationship, my hope is that you’re able to make discoveries about yourself, perhaps become aware of some unhelpful patterns in your life, and embark on the healing process you deserve.

I’m queer and polyamory-affirming, offering a non-shaming environment for clients to explore parts of their identity they might not feel comfortable exploring in other contexts. I’m passionate about anti-racism, and am constantly continuing my own work and education to uphold anti-racist values and practices in session and beyond.

I work from a trauma-informed and attachment-based perspective, which allows me to understand how the impact of trauma on the nervous system can influence how we relate to others. In our work together, we’ll explore somatic strategies to help calm your nervous system in order to do deep emotional work in a way that feels safe to you.

During my undergraduate years at the University of Colorado at Boulder, I worked in a research lab investigating youth at high-risk for developing psychosis. After graduating cum laude with a degree in Psychology, I continued working in research in a large scale depression study at UCLA for four years.

Since graduating from USC’s Marriage and Family Master’s program in May 2021, I’ve been working in a community-based mental health agency and in private practice working with teens, adults, and couples.

My deepest wish for each client is that therapy is a space where one can grow, develop, and learn about themselves so that they can integrate this insight in a lasting way in their lives. It’s an honor and a privilege to bear witness to this change process, and I’m thrilled to be part of it!

Ericka Franklin

Ericka@cbpsychological.com

Ericka Franklin completed her Masters degree in Marriage and Family Therapy at the University of Southern California in 2022. As a Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist in Los Angeles and surrounding areas, she offers services across the lifespan both online and in-person.

Ericka views therapy as a safe space that allows the client to unveil a face that has not been seen and a voice that has not been heard so that the deepest issues, victories and desires in life can emerge to create an enriched living experience. As a therapist, she believes in honoring even the most still moments so that the client’s innate wisdom can flow freely without restriction. Time is not linear in session, and as such she will hold space so that you may lean into the past and future to learn how to be in the present moment.

With a therapeutic relationship built on trust, Ericka’s intention is that these are among the invisible gifts that can be cherished outside of therapy: increased willpower to live your life with more authenticity and in harmony with community, more resilience for discomfort, and a deepening of the heart’s capacity for joy.

Ericka has been where you are as a client and now extends her presence to help you navigate your path. As an Associate, she works with clients living with a range of experiences from self-acceptance and discovery within oppressive systems, finding wholeness after narcissistic abuse, strengthening the heart after the loss of a loved one and much more. To assist, she uses an eclectic approach that pulls from the theories Psychodynamic, ACT, Gestalt, CBT and IFS; when artfully combined, these principles help to awaken change and ripple out increased capacity for improvement in internal and external realities.

Though it may feel painful before it gets better, Ericka invites you to continue opening up your personal well of curiosity to witness this transformation in your life all while untangling the issues using the elements silence and sound… listening and speaking, together. Ericka looks forward to meeting and working with you at this very sacred point in your journey. She offers this reflection, “You’ve already taken the first step.”.