GABRIELLE Sigüenza, Trauma & Couples Therapist in Newport Beach, CAGabrielle Sigüenza
Gabrielle Sigüenza is a HOLISTIC Therapist at Holistic Trauma Therapy® in Newport Beach, California. She works with adult women, teens, and couples navigating childhood, relational, and attachment trauma. Her work is depth-oriented and informed by parts work, somatic approaches, and Emotionally Focused Therapy. She holds a Master of Science in Counseling and works under the clinical supervision of Dr. Caitlin LaBrie (PSY32211). She sees clients in person in Newport Beach and virtually throughout California, serving Orange County, Long Beach, and the surrounding coast.Some children learn to be loud. Others learn to disappear.
Maybe you are the second kind. You read a room before you enter it. You know what everyone else needs, and you go blank when someone asks what you want. Somewhere early, you were told that your feelings were a weather system everyone else had to survive, and you concluded that the safest thing to be was small.
That is not a personality. It is an adaptation, and it was a good one. It worked. The cost arrives later, usually in the form of a life that looks fine and feels far away — or a relationship where you are close to someone and still, somehow, alone.
None of this means something is wrong with you. And you do not have to keep carrying it alone.
Hi, I’m Gabi.
I work with people who learned early that the safest thing to be was easy, the one who did not need much, and who now, in their closest relationships, struggle to speak up, to take time for themselves, or to know what they truly want.
My work is informed by my own time on the other side of the couch, as a client. I believe that while we all have unique histories, there is a golden thread of experience that connects me to you, and you to me. Being let into someone's inner world is a privilege, and it takes time and trust to build. It cannot be rushed, the same way a plant cannot be hurried into putting down roots.
I know something about holding more than one world at once. I grew up between cultures, the daughter of an immigrant father, in a lineage shaped by both trauma and the breaking of it. The gift of having a cycle broken for me also came with a kind of distance, from heritage, from belonging, from the easy sense of where you come from. Being biracial, being queer, being highly sensitive, being the one in my family who went and did the work, taught me early how to hold contradictions that do not resolve. It is part of why I can sit with your complexities without needing to tidy them into something simpler than they are.
I have a naturally depth-oriented way of working. I believe your symptoms are not defects. They are the seeds of a self that adapted to survive, and they make sense once we understand what they were protecting. So much of what brings people to me is not one event. It is a pattern. Chronic self-doubt. The sense of having been silenced, by others or by yourself. The long habit of reading what everyone else needs before you know what you need.
Therapy with me looks a little different week to week. I am fluid and open by nature, and I make room for imperfection, awkwardness, humor, and the ordinary nuance of being a person. I will be compassionate toward your pain, and I will not co-sign the parts of you that feel helpless, because one of the kindest things I can do is believe in your power even before you can. My job is not to be the hero of your healing. It is to walk beside you while you become it.
My work is informed by parts work, somatics, and EFT, which means we do not stay only in your thoughts and your story. We work with the places in the body where those stories live, and with the parts of you that took on their jobs long before you had a say. I am also trained in psychedelic integration, for clients making meaning of those experiences.
I practice under the clinical supervision of Dr. Caitlin LaBrie (PSY32211), and within the training and framework of Chief Traumatologist Seema Sharma, SEP, LMFT, LPCC, founder of Holistic Trauma Therapy®. This means every client at our practice receives the depth of care that comes from an integrated, trauma-informed team.
Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (156247)
Individual Therapy
For the one who has always been fine
Maybe you have been in therapy before, and you can name your patterns clearly, and still something has not shifted. I work in the gap between understanding a thing and actually feeling it change. Together we go beneath the story you have told about yourself for years, and we work in the body, not only in explanation, because the places you learned to override are where the change actually happens. These are the areas I hold most closely.
So much of what brings people in is not a single event. It is a pattern, laid down early, in the years before you had words for any of it. The child who learned to be easy. The one who read the room to stay safe. The one who decided, somewhere back there, that needing things was dangerous. I work with the parts of you that took on those jobs long ago, with patience and without rushing them, so the adaptations that once protected you can finally rest. This is the root of most of what I do, and it is where the deepest change tends to live.
The way you learned to bond, or to brace, formed in your earliest relationships, long before you could consent to it. If closeness came with unpredictability, or if love arrived tangled with fear, your nervous system built its defenses accordingly, and those defenses tend to follow you into every relationship since. I help you understand the pattern from the inside, gently, so that connection can start to feel less like a risk and more like something you are allowed to have.
Bicultural Identities & Belonging
I know something about holding more than one world at once. When you grow up between cultures, or as the one who left, or broke a cycle, or does not quite fit the boxes anyone hands you, there is a particular ache that comes with it, a distance from heritage, from family, from the easy sense of where you come from. It is not something to be fixed. It is something to be witnessed and honored in all its contradictions. I hold that complexity with ease, because I have lived inside it, and I help you find a self that does not require you to abandon any part of where you come from.
People-Pleasing and the Disappearing Self
You are the easy one. The low-maintenance one. The one who never needed much, who reads what everyone else wants and hands it over before they have to ask. Somewhere early, you learned that your own needs were a burden, so you got very good at not having them, or at least not showing them. It works, until it costs you the ability to know what you actually want, or to feel like a person underneath all the accommodating. I work with the part of you that went quiet to keep the peace, gently, so that having needs stops feeling dangerous and your own voice starts to feel like it belongs to you again.
Therapy for Teens
For the parent who can tell something is off
You know your kid. You can feel the difference between an ordinary hard week and something that has settled in and stayed, the withdrawal, the anxiety, the sense that they are managing something they cannot yet put into words. Adolescence is when many of the patterns we carry for life first take shape, which also makes it one of the most powerful times to be met with the right kind of care.
Gabi works with teenagers the same way she works with everyone, with patience, without rushing, and without treating them as a problem to be fixed. Teens are quick to sense when an adult is performing concern at them, and quick to open when they are met as a whole person. Gabi builds that trust first, at the teen's pace. As a parent, you will be part of the process in an age-appropriate way. In an early conversation, Gabi will walk you through how confidentiality works for a minor, what stays between her and your teen, and what she will bring to you, so that your child has a private space to be honest and you have the reassurance of knowing they are safe and supported.
I support teens with:
Anxiety, depression, and overwhelm
Early relational and family wounds
Identity, self-concept, and the question of who they are becoming
Being a highly sensitive or deeply feeling teen
LGBTQIA+ identity and belonging
Couples Therapy
For two people carrying more than they can name
Some couples are not in a loud crisis. You are just missing each other, and neither of you can quite say why. Often it is because the trauma each of you carried in, from childhood, from earlier relationships, is quietly running the relationship. The old adaptations that once kept each of you safe start to collide. One reaches, one retreats. One goes quiet, one escalates. The pattern is not a sign that you chose wrong. It is two nervous systems doing what they learned to do.
I work with couples who want to understand what is underneath the pattern, not just manage the surface of it. Bringing the same depth and body-aware lens I use in individual work, I help each of you notice the protective response you slip into and the softer feeling it is guarding, so you can meet each other there instead of in the same argument again. The work is warm, honest, and safe for both people in the room.
I work with couples who are:
Carrying individual trauma histories that surface in closeness, trust, or conflict
Stuck in the same conversation that never quite resolves
Dating or newly committed and trying to build something healthier than what you each grew up with
Feeling more like roommates than partners and wanting the closeness back
Ready to be honest with each other, not just better at arguing
My background & training
I use a number of techniques to help you reach your goal, while working through a holistic lens that treats the mind, body, and spirit.
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M.S. in Counseling (Marriage & Family Therapy Concentration) - California State University, Fullerton
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Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy
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CAMFT
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Supervised by Dr. Caitlin La Brie (PSY32211)
Training in Holistic Trauma Therapy by Chief Traumatologist, Seema Sharma, SEP, LMFT, LPCC
Frequently Asked Questions
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Insight is not the same as change. Many people arrive able to explain their childhood with precision and still unable to feel different in their own body. That gap is not a personal failure. It usually means the earlier work stayed in language, when the wound was never stored there. Gabi works in the body and with the parts underneath the story, which is often what reaches the thing talk alone could not.
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Maybe, and it is worth holding loosely. Sensitivity is often described as a trait you are born with, and for some people that is the whole story. For others, what looks like sensitivity is a nervous system that learned early to monitor everything because something depended on it. Those two things feel similar from the inside and need different care. Gabi does not assume which one you are.
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Your teen needs a private space to be honest, and you need to know they are safe. Gabi holds both. Early on, she will explain how confidentiality works for a minor, what she keeps between herself and your teen, and what she will share with you, so everyone knows the boundaries before the work begins. You will be involved in an age-appropriate way throughout.
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No. Gabi works with couples at every stage, including dating and newly committed partners. Some of the most useful couples work happens early, before patterns harden, when two people want to build something healthier than what they each came from.
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Communication is usually the presenting problem, not the root. Most recurring fights are two nervous systems protecting old wounds. Gabi works with the communication and with what sits underneath it, which is why the change tends to hold rather than fade after a few good weeks.
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Yes. She sees individuals, teens, and couples in person at the Newport Beach office and virtually throughout California. This work translates well to telehealth, and many clients do a mix.
Begin When You Are Ready.
You do not have to keep carrying this alone. A free 20-minute consultation gives you space to ask questions and get a sense of whether you and Gabi are a good fit, with no pressure and no obligation. Schedule a consultation when you are ready.
Gabi provides individual, teen, and couples therapy in person at our Newport Beach office at 1000 Quail Street, Suite 220, and virtually throughout California, including Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Irvine, Tustin, Huntington Beach, Long Beach, Orange County, and beyond.