Our Providers | Martine Benatar, LMFT

Martine Benatar, LMFT

Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist

“Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to  become heroes overnight. Just one step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing  that it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the power to stare it down.”  

~ Eleanor Roosevelt 

Martine Benatar is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist dedicated to helping her patients  navigate life's challenges with greater clarity, resilience, confidence, and self-awareness. 

With 30 years of professional experience, she has fine-tuned her therapeutic approach to be  individualized and grounded in evidence-based practices, including cognitive behavioral  therapy, and positive, person-centered, and solution-focused modalities. She also draws on  psychodynamic techniques to help clients gain insight into their relationships and the  underlying factors behind unhelpful thoughts, feelings, and patterns of behavior.  

Martine believes that storytelling and humor, used when appropriate, can help patients  recognize shared perspectives and experiences. Her style is strength-based and collaborative.  She understands that starting therapy — whether for the first time or with a new therapist — can feel overwhelming and vulnerable, and she works to create a supportive, non-judgmental  space to explore thoughts, concerns, and emotions at a pace that feels comfortable and safe. 

Martine specializes in anxiety, depression, OCD, parenting, and disordered or emotional eating,  as well as major life transitions such as divorce, empty nest, aging, retirement, and grief. She  helps patients build coping strategies and find solutions in an empowered, self-determining  way.

Education & Experience

Martine's path to becoming a Marriage and Family Therapist began as an Art Therapy master's  student at New York University, where she first saw the restorative power of art and creativity.  After moving to California, she worked as an art therapist in a hospital setting with children  diagnosed with cancer and their families. It was there that she saw how talking with patients  and families — exploring their concerns, hopes, and dreams — could create connection, relief,  and resilience, and support personal growth and wellbeing. 

Martine’s extensive experience includes working with children, adolescents, adults, parents of  neurodivergent children or children with disabilities, and victims of medical trauma. She is  highly skilled in helping people with Autism (ASD) better understand and respond to social cues and improve perspective-taking. She is also trained in trauma-focused cognitive behavioral  therapy and in teaching skills to manage PTSD symptoms.  

Believing that no one needs to manage life's challenges alone, Martine is dedicated to supporting her patients through stressful times with compassion and understanding and  helping them identify their strengths to build the skills needed to heal, cope, and flourish.