Brandy Roggentien, LCSW

My training is behavioral. I came up through UCLA's program under Ivar Lovaas and his associates at the Center for Autism and Related Disorders, where I worked as a supervising senior behavior specialist and applied behavior analyst. That is where I learned to look at what maintains a pattern rather than only at where it came from.

It is an unusual foundation for a psychotherapist and I think it is the reason clients describe me the way they do. Behavioral training makes you impatient with explanation that does not lead anywhere. You end up asking, fairly quickly, what would actually have to change for this week to go differently.

The rest of the career

Private practice since 2005, and telehealth long before most of the field moved to it. School social work alongside that: special education curriculum development, and workshop training delivered to county superintendents across several districts. A period as a primary independent specialist at the Assessment and Collaborative Treatment Center. Adjunct faculty lecturing at Brandman University and CSU Bakersfield.

The through-line is that I have spent my working life in the places where mental health meets a system: a school, a family, a district, a housing provider. That is usually where people get stuck, and it is not a part of the job that therapy training covers especially well.

How I work

Directly. I will tell you what I think, including when what I think is that you do not need what you came for. One of the clinicians who refers to me describes it as being "direct and always comes with solutions to issues clients struggle to see", and I would rather be useful than comfortable.

That does not mean blunt for its own sake. Trauma work in particular is paced by the client and nobody is pushed. But you will not spend six weeks circling a subject waiting for me to name it.

I also answer my own phone. When you call (661) 505-5555, you get me.

Why animals ended up part of this

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I noticed something I could not ignore. Clients who were struggling to hold a week together were often steadier when an animal was in the room, and they described it in clinical terms without meaning to: the panic attack was shorter, the night was survivable, they got out of bed because something else needed them to.

That is a real effect and it costs the health system nothing. Documenting it properly, so that someone does not lose their housing over it, became a part of my practice. It is a smaller part than the therapy, and it is the part people most often arrive confused about. If that is what brought you here, start with emotional support animal letters.

Credentials

• Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), California license #22723, California Board of Behavioral Sciences
• National Provider Identifier 1184196875
• Board certified in case management (BICM); Pupil Personnel Services (PPS)
• Cognitive behavioral therapist and trauma care specialist
• UCLA-trained applied behavior analyst
• Former adjunct faculty, Brandman University and CSU Bakersfield

You can verify my license yourself through the California Board of Behavioral Sciences or the California Department of Consumer Affairs license lookup. I would encourage you to do that with any clinician, including me.

Outside the practice

Married, four daughters, and a house with more animals in it than is strictly sensible. I am outdoors most mornings before anyone else is awake, which is the main reason I can do this work for as long as I have.