Lani Stoner

About Lani

>The brief intro to me, my experience, education and approaches to work with people and how I hope to help you:
I’m Lani Bain Stoner, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Details of my experience, education and treatment approach are below, but in a nutshell, I have worked in the mental health (MH) field since the late 1970s, with a broad range of clients, with individuals, couples, families and in groups, I grew up in a family of educators moving frequently as my father worked at different Colleges, and lived overseas during my mid-childhood and early adolescence. I came back to the US for the end of Jr High and completed high school in Virginia. I went to college in Pennsylvania, Washington DC, and completed my BA and MA in So. California. After getting married in 1975 and completing my MA, I moved to a central valley city in CA where I and my husband raised two children with support from their grandparents. We moved to a smaller community in the foothills in 2019 to where our adult children live. At times I’ve had to back off of full-time work in the MH field while being a caregiver for family members, but I’m deeply committed to helping people achieve their treatment goals—reaching for hope for a better quality of life and improved functioning and healthier relationships. My therapy focuses on what are largely brief therapy modalities—though I have worked with people on a longer-term basis, and I use theoretical orientations that lead to an active and directive therapeutic stance when working with clients.

I look forward to meeting with you to help start down the path toward hope and healing.

>The longer explanation—if you’d like more information about me and my work, is below:
My experience:
I’m Lani Bain Stoner, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. I have worked in the mental health field since 1976 after completion of her MA in Counseling Psychology. I worked in county/agency settings from 1978 to 2006 with children, adults and elderly, with a major focus on work with chronically mentally ill adults starting in 1982. After I retired from public agency work, I began a private practice working with children, adolescents and adults, doing 1:1, couples and family work through to 2016. Due to family needs I stopped all but online volunteer work with the military population, veterans and their loved ones and minimal private practice online up until spring of 2020. At that point I began working with another public MH system, through the summer of 2020, when I returned to online pro bono work with the military population mentioned above, and a small online private practice.

My education:
After getting my MA in Counseling Psychology from Chapman University in 1976, and completing classwork for a Certificate in Gerontology from Sacramento State University om the late 70s, I’ve dedicated time and energy to gain training and understanding of major mental illnesses, as well as those with disabling/problematic or chronic/intrusive symptoms, working to understand and respond to the difficulties that first responders and military have, for work with those who have LGBTQQIP2SAA identification (LGBTQQIP2SAA stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, queer, intersex, pansexual, two-spirit (2S), androgynous and asexual) and want to have treatment in a safe therapeutic relationship. I continually work to be ready to help those who are struggling in difficult life circumstances, and couple relationships or with parenting concerns, and with people who have chronic pain and physical concerns or emotional difficulties, or who have difficulties with a history of trauma (including from major traumatizing events or circumstances) or of abuse. I am trained and experienced in CIS—a structured way of working with people who have had traumatic events in their work environment or school settings.

More detail about my treatment approach:
As mentioned above, my work with people is active and directive. My primary treatment approach in my work with people is Cognitive/behavioral, focusing on the interplay between thoughts, feelings and actions and how to make changes in key areas that can improve functioning in life and relationships. I also utilize concepts and tools from multiple treatment orientations—Narrative Therapy, Strength Based Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, as well as Client Centered, Mindfulness and Solutioned focused therapies, and draw from family systems theories and related family related treatment modalities. A major focus of my work is in the area of symptom management—helping people learn ways to manage response to symptoms in a way that decrease the symptoms’ impact on the person and on their loved ones.
I have worked with people of many religious/spiritual orientations and those who are agnostic or atheistic, with people of many and mixed ethnicities and cultures, and dealing with history of impact of their own and family’s immigration to the US when there may be concerns. I continually seek training and keep up with writings on an ongoing basis on all of the above areas of focus to strengthen skills and understanding of these areas of work—being sensitive to all aspects of culture and multigenerational history that could affect their beliefs, focuses and understanding of life and life events and their functioning in life and relationships. I also have a case management approach, clarifying unmet needs and barriers for persons in their lives, and assisting them in gaining help from programs and services in their communities.

And more on how I feel that I can help you:
I seek to establish a respectful, safe and supportive therapy environment that
• helps people take steps toward stability in their emotions and symptoms, their lives, work environments and relationships—helping them to build healthier life and symptom management skills, and communication and relationship skills.
• helps people learn stress management, self-care and coping skills especially when there are psychiatric or emotional distress
• work with the persons on individualized treatment goals and focuses that may evolve through the treatment process
At times people hope through therapy to gain a better understanding of the severity of the symptoms that they may have, and whether they need medications. With work to help them manage their response to symptoms, we can clarify barriers to managing symptoms, and better discern whether they can gain voluntary control of their response to symptoms and can improve their overall quality of life and level of functioning. Not all can fully benefit from learning the skills and understanding for doing this, and the step of supporting the person in seeking psychiatric treatment may need to happen.