Therapy for Actors Therapy for Artists in Irvine, CA

Therapy for Actors & Artists in Irvine, CA

You Are Still Carrying The Things You Thought You Had Outgrown

You keep circling your journal like it might bite you. The blank page feels like the one scene partner you can’t fake it with. No applause, no direction, no costume to hide in. Just you, scratching words that might not make sense. And yet, this is the only place you feel honest anymore. You think maybe journaling can help you figure this out and you can skip therapy. You wonder if there really is a thing like therapy for actors or artists.

You’ve spent so long turning wounds into art that you sometimes forget they’re still wounds. You’ve sung them out, written them down, painted them, built them, acted them out, shaped them into lines and melodies. People tell you it’s beautiful, brave, moving. But afterward, when the stage goes dark, the ache is still here. The applause doesn’t stitch it together. The song doesn’t take it away. The story isn’t the same as healing.

It’s strange, isn’t it? That the things that hurt most are also the things that seem to give you your gift. If you hadn’t carried loneliness, would you know how to express longing? If you hadn’t swallowed your anger for years, would you know how to summon it on stage? If you hadn’t grown up learning silence, would you know how to listen so carefully to what isn’t being said? Your art came out of all of that—like flowers forcing their way through cracks in concrete. But the concrete is still here.

And you don’t know how much longer you can pretend that expression is the same thing as healing.

Because here’s the truth: you can bring an audience to tears with a song, but you can’t remember the last time you cried for yourself. You can write a scene that makes people feel seen, but when you sit across from someone you love, you don’t always know how to let them see you. You can paint heartbreak with a rawness that feels like bleeding, but when you’re really broken, you just go numb. And you wonder if your art is the only place you allow yourself to feel.

That’s the part that scares you. That maybe you built a whole life around channeling your wounds into art because you didn’t know where else to put them. Maybe you thought if you just kept writing, kept acting, kept singing, building, painting, sculpting it would all alchemize into wholeness. And some of it has—it’s given you purpose, connection, even joy. But there are parts of you art can’t reach. Parts still waiting.

When you were a kid, you learned early that what you felt wasn’t always welcome. You were told you were too dramatic, or too sensitive, or too much. Or told you weren’t enough. You remember watching the grown-ups in your life pull away when emotions ran too high. You got the message: don’t show too much. Don’t need too much. Find another outlet. Find a way to show up differently. And you did. You turned it into performance, into words, into images, into melody. And people praised you for it—“so talented, so expressive.” You wonder if anyone realized you were just finding a safe way to say what you couldn’t say at home.

But the body remembers. The heart remembers. And even now, after all the performances, showings and years, there are places in you that still ache like they did back then. Places that don’t want a spotlight, they just want holding. Places that don’t need an audience, they just need someone real to stay.

That’s why you are reading this now. Because tomorrow you’re going to try something different. You’re going to reach out. To a therapist. To someone who might know how to sit with the parts of you that never healed. Not to fix you. Not to make you less of an artist. But to help you explore these wounds in a way that isn’t just for show.

You don’t want to lose your art—you couldn’t, even if you tried. It’s part of you. But you don’t want it to be the only place you know how to feel. You want to learn how to let your own life hold some of that depth, not just your performances or your songs or the pages of your notebook. You want to know what it’s like to bring tenderness, rage, grief, joy into the room with someone you love, without fear it will push them away.

You imagine what it would be like to sit in a space where your art isn’t performance, but process. Where you could sing or role play or write, or paint or whatever your art is; not for an audience, but for healing. Where the same tools you’ve always used to express could finally be used to restore. That’s the therapist you hope you find—someone who understands what it means to live in the world of art and to need more than art alone to heal. Someone who won’t dismiss your work as “just performance,” but who will meet you inside it and help you move through it.

Because these wounds aren’t just shadows to escape—they’re threads woven into who you are. They shaped your voice, your perspective, your craft. But they also left gaps: places of emptiness, places where connection feels foreign, places where safety feels fragile. And you don’t think the goal is to erase them. You think the goal is to tend to them. To stop pretending expression is the same as integration.

Healing means finally letting someone else into the studio of your soul. Letting them watch you stumble, improvise, forget lines, get lost in your process you’ve been repeating for years. It means discovering you don’t have to carry this all alone. It means realizing that the parts of you once thought unlovable are actually the parts that need the most care.

You don’t know what It will take to finally reach out for help. You might freeze when it’s time to call. You will probably second-guess yourself, tell yourself you don’t need help, that you can just keep writing, painting, acting it out. But if you’re honest, you’ve been doing that for decades, and the ache is still here. The longing is still here. The wounds are still here.

You are tired. Tired of pouring everything into roles and songs and words and images while the quieter parts of you keep waiting. Tired of telling yourself that if you just create one more piece, sing one more song, write just a little more, the healing will come.

You want something different now. You want to know what it feels like to be cared for, not just clapped for. To be seen without having to perform. To be held, not just heard. You want the courage you bring to your art to be the same courage you bring to your own healing.

You want to finally let someone meet you where you are; artist and human, gifted and wounded, expressive and still aching. And, if you stay with it long enough, you’ll learn what it’s like to let the healing come, too.

Not just the art. The healing.

Hi, I’m Karl 

I work with artists—actors, musicians, writers, performers—who know their wounds and their gifts are intertwined. The very places of ache and longing often fuel your art, shaping the depth of your performance, the honesty of your voice, the rawness of your writing. You’ve learned how to turn pain into beauty, silence into story, loss into something others can feel. And yet, while your art can express it, it doesn’t always heal it. The same wounds that fuel your creativity can also leave you longing—longing for relief, for peace, for the kind of healing that never seems to arrive.

In therapy, we give those places space—not to strip them away or silence them, but to explore them more deeply. To understand how they live in you now, how they show up in your relationships, and what they’re still asking for. Together, we slow down and notice not just the stories you tell but the emotions your body carries, the patterns you’ve rehearsed for years, the places inside you that still wait for recognition.

Because I’ve lived in this world myself—over 20 years as an actor in theater and television, a singer-songwriter, and an author—I know how inseparable the inner life of an artist is from their work. That’s why I don’t ask you to leave your art at the door. Instead, we use it. Your art becomes part of the healing process: role play, storytelling, song, improvisation, even the language of performance itself. The tools you’ve always used to express can also become tools to restore.

I bring over 15 years of experience as a therapist, with specialized training in trauma, attachment, Brainspotting, and EFT—but more than that, I bring lived experience.

In our work together, you won’t get surface-level validation or a script to follow. You’ll get presence. Reflection. A space where your artistry and your humanity are both welcome, where the same courage you bring to your craft can be turned inward—not for the sake of performance, but for the sake of healing.

You don’t need to become someone else. You need a place where it feels safe enough to be fully yourself—artist and human, gifted and wounded, creating and healing. That’s the space I hold, and I’d be honored to walk with you in it.

Contact me for a free consultation for Therapy for Actors & Therapy for Artists

If you’re an artist who’s ready to explore the wounds beneath your work—not to erase them, but to finally tend to them—I’d be honored to walk with you.

Call me at 949-922-0734 to schedule a free 15-minute consultation. Reach out today to begin finding a space where your art and your healing can meet

Use your art to heal.