Sara Eisenbach
Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (AMFT) and Associate Professional Clinical Counselor (APCC)
At a Glance: My Approach & Experience
Self-Identified Autistic Therapist — I understand masking, sensory overwhelm, and social uncertainty from the inside.
Workplace Experience — I spent more than a decade in a demanding corporate creative environment, resolving conflicts between teams and advocating for colleagues' needs and boundaries.
Honest Conversations About Relationships and Sex — Dating, intimacy, desire, and the things that feel hard to say out loud all have a place here.
Trauma-Informed & EMDR-Trained — I bring a trauma-focused perspective to the work of understanding and processing painful experiences.
Lived Experience of Divorce — After a 14-year marriage that ended, I know how much can go unexplored when partners don't have language for the ways neurodivergence shapes a relationship.
Queer, Trans & Kink-Affirming Care — I welcome diverse identities, relationship structures, and expressions of intimacy.
Multicultural Perspective — Raised in a single-parent immigrant household, I'm curious about how culture and family shape the expectations we carry.
When You've Spent Years Being Misread
Maybe you're good at what you do, and you still come home drained from a day of figuring out what people meant, what they expected, and whether you said something wrong. Maybe a partner has told you that you seem distant when you were trying hard to connect. Maybe you've been told for years that you're too much in one way and not enough in another.
You may have learned to keep it together on the outside: monitoring your tone, rehearsing conversations, pushing through noise and overwhelm. The cost often shows up later, as exhaustion, irritability, or shutting down when you finally get home.
Therapy can be a place where you don't have to perform. You can come as you are, and we can figure out what's going on underneath.
A Woman Working With Autistic Men
I'm not a man, and I won't pretend to know what it's like to grow up with the expectations so often placed on boys and men. What I do know is what it's like to adapt to a world that doesn't always make room for the way you naturally think, feel, or move through it.
I'm a self-identified autistic woman, and I discovered my neurodivergence later in life. Learning about my own neurotype helped me make sense of experiences I'd struggled to understand for years, from sensory overwhelm and social uncertainty to the exhaustion of masking.
I also know that the question of whether you're autistic "enough" to claim the word can follow you around. I still feel it some days. Whether you're diagnosed, self-identified, or just starting to wonder, you're welcome here. My job is to understand your experience on its own terms, not to fit it into a template.
Work, Masking, and Keeping Your Job
Before becoming a therapist, I spent over a decade as a creative professional in a demanding corporate environment. I know what it's like to navigate spaces with unspoken rules and expectations that don't always fit your experience. Sometimes, fitting in isn't simply about belonging; it's about keeping your job.
If you're excellent at your work but exhausted by workplace politics, vague expectations, or constantly decoding what people really mean, we can talk about that directly: performance feedback, conflict, disclosure decisions, accommodations, boundaries, and how to protect your energy.
Relationships, Dating, and Sex
Many autistic men come to therapy because of relationships. A partner reads a shutdown as not caring. Dating feels like a test with hidden rules. Intimacy gets complicated by sensory needs, pressure, or not knowing how to ask for what you want.
After a 14-year marriage that ended in divorce, I came to understand how much can go unexplored when partners don't have the language to recognize the ways neurodivergence may shape their relationship.
I'm comfortable having honest, nonjudgmental conversations about sex and intimacy. Desire, mismatched libidos, fantasies, kink, sensory preferences, pleasure, shame, asexuality, and the things that can feel difficult to say out loud all deserve room. You don't need to have the right words or know exactly what you want.
Around the same time I started graduate school, I volunteered with TASHRA, the Alternative Sexualities Health Research Alliance, helping launch its community outreach program. That work connects to something I care about deeply: no one should have to educate their therapist about kink, polyamory, or queerness before they can get help.
I also work with couples, so if you'd like to bring a partner into the work, we can do that together.
What We Can Explore Together
Masking and burnout — Understanding the cost of constantly adapting and building a life that requires less recovery.
Work — Workplace stress, feedback, conflict, disclosure, accommodations, and boundaries.
Relationships and dating — Communication, conflict, and feeling understood by the people you care about.
Sex and intimacy — Desire, sensory needs, and the vulnerability of asking for what you want.
Emotional awareness — Finding words for what's happening inside, at a pace that works for you.
Sensory needs and overwhelm — Understanding your nervous system and honoring your needs without shame.
Identity — Figuring out who you are beneath the expectations you've learned to meet.
Family and culture — Exploring how early experiences, family patterns, and cultural expectations shape the way you relate to yourself and others.
My Approach to Therapy
My approach is trauma-informed and draws on attachment theory, EMDR, and psychodynamic exploration of family-of-origin experiences. I'm interested in how our histories shape the protective strategies we develop and the needs we struggle to express. When practical tools help, I draw on CBT, DBT-informed skills, and solution-focused techniques.
I'll be direct with you about what I'm noticing, and I'll check whether it fits. If you think better with a written list, notes, or concrete examples, we can use them. You don't have to make eye contact, fill silences, or talk about feelings in any particular way.
Sessions take place online, by video. And there's room for laughter here, too. We can take the hard things seriously without taking ourselves too seriously all the time.
Who I Work With
Autistic men, diagnosed, self-identified, or still wondering
ADHD and AuDHD men
Men who've spent years feeling misread at work or in relationships
Men experiencing burnout, overwhelm, or exhaustion from masking
Men navigating dating, relationships, sex, and intimacy
Men rebuilding after separation or divorce
Queer, trans, and kink-involved men
Men from immigrant and multicultural families
Autistic men and their partners
You don't have to become a different person to belong.
The Long Way Here
I came to therapy the long way. I studied English literature at UC Irvine, and my first job after college was editing legal manuscripts for a legal publisher, where I also learned graphic design and coding. Over the next decade and more, I worked as a freelance designer and project manager, designed and delivered training for 160 employees at an educational software company, and became a production designer and creative production manager at a full-service creative events agency.
Even in creative work, so much of my job was about people. I advocated for teammates' needs and boundaries, built clearer ways for teams to communicate, and helped resolve conflicts when things broke down between them.
In 2020, I completed a 40-hour domestic violence advocate training at Laura's House. Two years later, I started graduate school in clinical mental health counseling, and I kept working in creative production the whole way through.
I bring all of it with me into my work as a therapist: the organization, the collaboration, and the advocacy.
License, Training, and More
License: Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (AMFT) #165001 and Associate Professional Clinical Counselor (APCC) #23495, California Board of Behavioral Sciences
Supervised by: Dr. Harry Motro, LMFT #53452
Employed by: New Path Family of Therapy Centers
Education
M.S. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, California State University, Fullerton. Excellence in Counseling Skills Award, selected at graduation; member of Chi Sigma Iota, the Counseling Academic and Professional Honor Society International
B.A. in English Literature, University of California, Irvine
Training
EMDR Trained, EMDR Professional Training
CE: Neurodivergence & Sexuality, AASECT
CE: Ketamine Couple Therapy, Journey Clinical
40-Hour State Certified Domestic Violence Advocate Training, Laura's House
Approaches: Trauma-informed care, attachment theory, EMDR, psychodynamic exploration of family-of-origin experiences, and somatic approaches, with CBT, DBT-informed skills, and solution-focused techniques when they fit
Before therapy: More than a decade in creative leadership as an editor, graphic designer, production designer, and creative production manager
Languages: Conversational Persian (Farsi) and Spanish
Specialty Areas
Autistic Men | Late-Identified and Self-Identified Autism | ADHD and AuDHD | Masking and Burnout | Workplace Stress and Disclosure | Relationships and Dating | Sex and Intimacy | Emotional Awareness | Sensory Needs and Overwhelm | Divorce and Rebuilding | Identity | Culture and Family | Trauma-Informed Care | EMDR | LGBTQIA+ Affirming Care