Diane Paulette Tolentino LMFT

In my work across residential and outpatient settings, family therapy has been a consistent part of how I support recovery, and attachment is often the lens I utilize. I explore each individual's sense of safety and trust in their relationships, their ability to provide and accept support, and willingness to repair relational wounds (often called "ruptures").

My clinical foundation is in substance use and dual diagnosis treatment, spanning nearly a decade across residential, outpatient, and telehealth settings. I began this work at Tarzana Treatment Centers, providing therapy for individuals with co-occurring disorders, including forensic and justice-involved populations, before moving into treatment centers like Passages and Crosspointe Recovery, where I worked with clients navigating dual diagnoses through both individual and group therapy.

I work with individuals navigating relationship patterns, communication breakdowns, and boundary-setting, often through the same attachment lens that shapes the rest of my work. This might look like understanding why certain dynamics keep repeating across different relationships, learning to tolerate vulnerability without shutting down or over-explaining, or untangling how loyalty, obligation, or fear of conflict shows up in how you relate to a partner, friend, or family member.

I use motivational interviewing to meet clients exactly where they are, not where I think they should be. Many people arrive in my office already carrying their own solutions, their own theories about what's wrong, and their own sense of what might help. That is where we start the work. I look for a client's existing strengths and the things that have gotten them this far, even imperfectly, and build from that.

My approach to addiction counseling is built around treating substance use as connected to everything else. This means sessions move between the immediate — cravings, triggers, day-to-day recovery challenges and what's underneath: family dynamics, trauma, mood, or unmet needs that substance use has often been quietly managing for a long time.

Relationships shift under pressure: a career change, addiction, grief, or years of resentment, attachment ruptures. I help partners understand not just what's going wrong, but why the same conflict keeps resurfacing in slightly different forms. A lot of this traces back to attachment and communication patterns: one partner pulling closer while the other pulls away, or old defensiveness stepping in where curiosity used to be.