About Melissa
Melissa Barley-Trindle earned her Master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Southern California, with a concentration in mental health. Her educational background also includes a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, with an emphasis on counseling psychology and women’s issues. Over the course of her education and training, Melissa has provided mental health services to individuals, couples, families, and groups in a wide range of settings, including group homes, community mental health clinics, college counseling centers, and hospital bedsides.
While completing her studies, Melissa worked extensively with women and children in domestic violence situations, and later went on to work in group homes with adolescents in the juvenile justice system or child protective services. In graduate school, she spent a year of internship at USC’s Student Counseling Center where she treated undergraduate and graduate students with depression, relationship issues, anxiety, academic concerns, and identity issues. Melissa has spent the past 5 years providing mental health and related social services to cancer patients and caregivers at City of Hope Medical Center in Duarte. Melissa has been privileged to help her patients learn effective coping strategies in the face of devastating chronic and acute illness, as well as counsel patients and families through end of life issues and grief.
Melissa’s therapeutic orientation is thoughtfully eclectic, drawing largely upon systems theory, psychosocial development, cognitive-behavioral and mindfulness techniques. Beyond theory or modality, she believes it is most important to “start where the client is,” and work collaboratively to help them reach their therapeutic goals.