Brooke Schwartz, LCSW
Founder and Clinical Director
Pronouns
she/her
Education
Masters of Social Work, Columbia University
Areas of Expertise
Perfectionists, people-pleasers, and high-achievers
The "good,” “well,” or “functional” one in dysfunctional family systems
Loving someone with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)
Adult children of emotionally immature parents
Anxiety, depression, and critical self-talk
Chronic invalidation
Emotional dysregulation and self-sabotage
Locations
Brooke works with clients in-person in West Los Angeles and virtually with those located in California, New York, Florida, and Vermont.
Licensure
California #105459, New York #094126, Florida #3938, Vermont #089.0136666TELE
Meet Brooke
Brooke is a Los Angeles-based psychotherapist, behavioral therapy expert, and the founder of Sawtelle Psychotherapy Group.
Many of Brooke’s clients are high-achievers, perfectionists, and often appear to have everything figured out. They are considered the “overcontrolled” ones, the “obsessive” ones…they are the ones who had to choose self-sufficiency and organization to cope with chaos, and are so tired of trying to keep it all together.
Brooke also works with people who struggle with the intensity of their emotions. They are relief-seekers who take the edge off through activities like mindless scrolling and substance use—because anything would be better than feeling so deeply. They are so tired of the ups and downs, of being called “dramatic” and “sensitive,” and of feeling at war with their minds.
Wherever you fall on this continuum, therapy is an opportunity to explore the experiences that have shaped the way you move through the world. With Brooke as your nurturing and nonjudgmental yet direct guide, therapy will provide the opportunity to:
Identify what’s really going on emotionally
Understand why you’ve gotten stuck in unfulfilling emotional and behavioral patterns
Work with your thoughts rather than fighting against them
Explore new ways of navigating the life you’ve worked so hard to build so you can actually enjoy it
An east coaster at heart, Brooke lives in Los Angeles with her husband and rescue pup Remy. Outside of sessions, you’ll find Brooke bookmarking New York Times recipes, working on a home improvement project, or nose deep in a book from her never-ending TBR list.
Education and Training
Brooke completed her undergraduate degree at McGill University in Montréal. After her first job in research at the NYU Department of Early Childhood Health and Development, she went on to attend the Columbia University School of Social Work.
There, she was accepted into a year-long Dialectical Behavior Therapy Training Program and Lab, the only program of its kind in a school of social work. Throughout that year she received intensive training in DBT through Behavioral Tech and completed her clinical internship at the NYU Child Study Center. Brooke practiced comprehensive DBT for several years before opening her private practice and later Sawtelle Psychotherapy Group.
Brooke is trained in several other evidence-based behavioral therapies and modalities including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples (EFT), and Motivational Interviewing (MI), among others.