Walk with me

Charletta Erb, LMFT specializes in Anxiety, Depression, ADHD, Trauma,
Couples Therapy and Relationships

You have BIG feelings and you want to know how to cope. Out of nowhere, a painful encounter derails you for hours. Thoughts run through your head at 70 miles per hour and you cannot seem to turn them off at night. It only gets worse when you snap at others and you can’t seem to control your outbursts. You’re always analyzing things and reaching for self-help tools. You keep thinking you’ve found the cure, but you fail to reign in your feelings despite all you learned. 

Your confidence is shot. Each new aha! ends up making you painfully aware of something more that is wrong with you. Being hard on yourself seems like the only way you can change. The voices in your head tell you how you are never good enough. Lately, you can’t seem to stop your frenetic pace. You never seem to get comfortable around others, or even in your own body. 

Meet Nature Therapist
Charletta Erb, LMFT

I became a therapist because I also have big emotions. I teach what I have most needed to learn myself. So I am here to show you that you do not have to punish yourself, or prove your worth, or even figure everything out. My name is Charletta Erb (pronounced "Sharleeta"), and I'm a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Ventura, California (License #98832). With over ten years as a psychotherapist, I help people with busy brains tap into ease and calm.

Whether you come with anxiety, depression, ADHD, trauma, my clients feel deeply and learn to be more compassionate and loving toward themselves and in turn, their loved ones. Our emotions need to move or else they come out sideways. I studied somatic psychotherapy so we can listen to your body’s wisdom. We talk, play, move, laugh and cry. I love taking my clients for walks by the ocean and on the hills. 

Why do psychotherapy work in nature? After the work week, I find rest in my garden and by participating in Church of the Wild where nature is the sermon. Gathering at various trailheads, we wander alone and listen to nature wherever it gets our attention. We circle up together to share and give thanks. Listening to nature, I am refreshed to experience “church” without so much need for words. This is essential to my personal therapy care. Now, my therapy work with clients goes beyond words into direct experiences of nature, along with rhythms of our steps and breathing together.

Don’t just visualize your happy place. Be there with me. Breathe in Ventura’s sun and salty air. Waves of emotion slip into the surf right beneath your bare feet. Notice the trees along the river bottom, see their breezy leaves. Rise above the city on hillside gardens. Sigh at the sense of feeling more whole, even just as you are. I will see you, care for you as your story unfolds. Sometimes I even break into song! This is mindfulness without all the effort. 

Professional Biography

Charletta Erb is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, specializing in couples conflicts and nature-based psychotherapy for people with big emotions. She earned her Masters degree in Marriage and Family Therapy at The Family Institute at Northwestern University. She also completed additional training in Somatic Psychotherapy and Bowen Family Systems Theory. She has worked as a therapist at Maple Counseling Center, Family Therapy Institute, Community Counseling and Education Center, and Healthy Relationships California. She draws on a background in mediation, restorative justice, and therapeutic applications of interpersonal neurobiology (how the brain works in relationships). Previously, she served as a consultant with several non-profits addressing organizational conflict and development. She also has a Bachelor’s degree from Goshen College in Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies with a focus in mediation and organizational conflict. In her free time, she sings and plays fiddle in multiple bands.