Founder, Director of Clinical Services
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

Pronouns She/Her

Ashley M. Barrera is a Licensed Marital and Family Therapist (LMFT) and Licensed Clinical Supervisor for Marriage and Family Therapy Associates (MFT-As) in the state of Alaska. Ashley has been providing therapy to individuals, couples, and families since 2009.

As the Director of Clinical Services at Coastal Wellness and Counseling, LLC, Ashley provides clinical supervision, consultation, and training to Coastal Wellness & Counseling Clinical Staff. She also provides oversight to CWCs Administrative Staff to ensure best-practices and professional ethics extend through all aspects of the clinic.

As a Licensed Marital and Family Therapist (LMFT), Ashley believes every person has the divine right to live a healthy and fulfilling life. Accessing and refining the tools necessary to do so and applying them to one’s life can be a challenging process. Ashley sees her role as guiding people through the journey of identifying and harnessing the power of their unique strengths so they may achieve satisfaction from life and relationships. Ashley has a deep passion for working with families which grew out of her many years as an Infant and Toddler Montessori Teacher at Puffin Heights Montessori School. This experience inspired her to obtain a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Alaska Anchorage, followed by a Master of Science in Human Development and Family Studies where she specialized in Couple and Family Therapy at Iowa State University of Science and Technology.

Her work with families is heavily influenced by the pioneers of the field of Couple and Family Therapy, and their theories which include; Virginia Satir and The MRI Group (Strategic Family Therapy), Salvador Minuchin (Structural Therapy), Murray Bowen (Bowenian Theory), Ivan Boszormenya-Nagy (Contextual Family Therapy), and Gregory Bateson (Family Systems Theory). She is equally passionate about working with couples, both those striving to strengthen their marriage as well as those who are separated and/or contemplating separation or divorce. Ashley has received extensive training as a couples therapist and primarily utilizes Terry Real’s Relational Life Therapy, though her work is also heavily influenced by the research and theories of Drs. John and Julie Gottman of The Gottman Institute, and Richard Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems Theory (IFS).

Through these theoretical orientations, Ashley aims to strengthen relationships and create lasting change -even when working with couples and families who are experiencing life transitions brought on by divorce. Although her areas of specialization are primarily focused on couples and families, Ashley truly enjoys her work with individual clients. She appreciates the experience of empowering people to dig deep, evaluate their way of being in the world, strengthen their sense of self, and live their truth. She is inspired by the works of Virginia Satir, Richard Schwartz, Terry Real, Brene Brown, Ester Perel, Gabor Maté , & Pema Chodron.

Ashley has trained with Terry Real and practices Relational Life Therapy as her primary approach when working with couples. She has completed Levels 1 – 3 of his therapist training program and sees the benefits of this work in her daily practice with couples. Often, couples on the brink of separation or divorce find their way back to one another in her office when they learn to harness the skills of relational living and as they begin to shift from years of criticism and contempt, to closeness and re-connection. She has also completed Levels 1 & 2 of the Gottman Method Couples Therapy program and enjoys integrating these strategies and interventions into her clinical work.