Joanna Lovinger, MFT

08/17/2026

05/19/2026

I'm excited to announce that I've formed a collective of like-minded therapists in the LA area. We're calling it Between Us.

After working together for years and consulting weekly, we realized that, between us, we have a lot to offer. We have different perspectives and expertise in different locations of Los Angeles, but we share a common approach: humanistic, grounded, compassionate, and highly ethical with the goals of transformation, growth, and healing.

A collective of compassionate, ethical therapists offering individual, couples, trauma, and maternal mental health therapy across Los Angeles. In-person & virtual sessions available.

12/18/2025

This is such a hard time of year. The days are shorter and colder. The news is unrelentingly bad. And our holiday expectations are rarely met. But people with treatment-resistant depression feel bad all year long. Therapy and medication aren’t working, and they doubt that they’ll ever feel better again.

But there is reason to hope, in the form of this clinically-proven, groundbreaking, and often misunderstood treatment.

Do you have severe, treatment-resistant depression? That’s the term to describe when you’ve tried all the anti-depressants on the market (SSRIs or SNRIs) but they’re not helping. Or when you go to therapy sessions for years but feel stuck. It’s a brutal, unrelenting darkness, a persistent sa...

12/07/2025

It's no joke: ketamine is a safe and effective treatment with potentially life-saving benefits. But if the media keeps using it as a punchline, I worry that people who could use the help will miss out.

ketamine as a punchline Dec 7 Written By Joanna Lovinger It's no joke: ketamine is a safe and effective treatment with potentially life-saving benefits. But if the media keeps using it as a punchline, I worry that people who could use the help will miss out.Don’t come at me, but I just rewatched s...

12/06/2025

People are starting to go to jail in connection with Matthew Perry's passing two years ago. I’ll leave it up to others to decide whether or not Plasencia’s sentencing was fair.

The story behind this celebrity death is tragic for many reasons, but the one I discuss in this blog post is the perpetuation of a “party drug” stigma; that ketamine is taken by over-indulged addicts like Perry and Elon Musk. But negative publicity about ketamine obscures its use as a tool for healing.

I’m still upset about Matthew Perry’s death in October 2023. And it’s not just because he died too young, which he did. Or because he was talented or - by all accounts - a sweet guy. I’m upset because I suspect he wasn’t the only casualty that night on his back yard pool deck. People strug...

12/04/2025

Do you struggle with procrastination? Imposter syndrome? Rejection sensitivity? A vicious inner critic? Congratulations - you may be an artist. :)

12/04/2025

In my work as a therapist who specializes in artists, artificial intelligence comes up as a topic over and over in sessions. The writers, animators, graphic artists and others are terrified that their jobs will be redundant. And I understand but I don't agree. See what I mean.

12/04/2025

Revealing my "tricks of the trade" in dealing with resistant clients.