Richard Doleman

Relationship pain was Richard Doleman’s original teacher. Facing his own history of failed partnerships in his late thirties, he returned to school to understand what kept going wrong — and discovered a calling in the process. That personal reckoning shaped the therapist he became: an LMFT based in Santa Rosa, California, whose entire practice is oriented around the emotional architecture of close relationships.

Richard works with couples, families, and individuals navigating some of the hardest relational terrain there is — infidelity, chronic conflict, disconnection, blended-family strain, and the slow erosion of intimacy. His primary method is Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), developed by Dr. Susan Johnson, in which he is certified as both therapist and supervisor. He also holds advanced training in AEDP, an attachment-based experiential approach he uses with individual clients. What draws him to both models is the same thing: they create change through lived emotional experience in the room, not through analysis or instruction alone — and the research behind them is unusually strong.

With 27 years of practice in Sonoma County, along with his own experience as a husband, father, and grandfather, Richard brings a grounded human dimension to clinical work. He offers sessions online as well as in person.