Meet Piyola
Derbarseghian
Sexual Confidence & Relationship Repair Specialist
You may be successful in many areas of your life, yet find yourself dreading intimacy, struggling with avoidance, or wondering why your body won’t cooperate the way you want it to. When intimacy becomes tied to pressure, expectations, or fear of getting it wrong, it can create cycles of anxiety, shame, and disconnection that feel hard to interrupt.
Piyola’s clients tend to be thoughtful, driven people who are used to solving problems logically. But intimacy often requires a different kind of work. In sessions, she slows things down, builds emotional awareness, and develops the confidence and communication needed to restore both sexual and emotional connection.
Meet Piyola
Derbarseghian
If you’re feeling anxious, disconnected, or unsure how your past affects your intimacy and self-worth, therapy can help. Piyola Derbarseghian (she/her) is an associate therapist offering virtual therapy across California for individuals, couples, and polycules ready to deepen emotional and sexual connection.
As an Iranian-Armenian immigrant, she understands how cultural and familial messages can shape identity, relationships, and safety. Piyola brings a sex-positive, culturally sensitive approach that welcomes your story with compassion. She’s especially passionate about supporting Middle Eastern and Armenian clients, first- and second-generation immigrants, and those exploring infidelity, non-monogamy, or navigating cultural tensions around sex, identity, and family.
Who Piyola Works With:
Piyola works with individuals and couples who:
- Feel disconnected from their own desire or don’t recognize themselves in their relationship anymore
- Dread sex or find themselves avoiding it without fully understanding why
- Carry shame about their body, their history, or what they want
- Want to feel close again but don’t know how to get there
- Are rebuilding after betrayal and wondering if trust is possible
- Feel like outsiders to the intimacy they see other people having
- Are navigating identity, culture, or religion alongside their sexuality
A sex-positive, culturally informed approach:
Sex and intimacy are deeply personal, yet often shaped by silence, pressure, and unspoken expectations. Many people carry stress, shame, or performance pressure into their sex lives without realizing how much it affects connection.
Piyola creates space to address the conversations most avoid: sexual dissatisfaction, performance anxiety, shame around pleasure, trauma-related shutdown, or disconnection in long-term relationships. Together, you look directly at the patterns driving avoidance, anxiety, or tension and begin interrupting them with clarity and structure.
Her goal is not just insight, but change. Rebuilding confidence. Restoring steadiness. Strengthening intimacy in ways that feel grounded and sustainable.
Her style:
Warm, Emotionally Grounded, Insight-Driven, Intimacy Focused
Piyola helps individuals and couples slow down the patterns that feel automatic or overwhelming, creating space for new experiences of connection, safety, and authenticity. Her approach explores how early experiences, attachment dynamics, and cultural messages about sex and identity shape anxiety, avoidance, and disconnection in intimacy.
Drawing on attachment-based, trauma-informed, and emotionally focused approaches, she helps clients:
- Identify and interrupt anxiety cycles driving sexual shutdown or performance pressure
- Process relational injuries and rebuild emotional safety
- Build confidence and greater comfort with sexual expression
- Translate insight into tangible relational and sexual progress
Piyola provides a non-shaming, sex-positive environment with a clear focus on meaningful growth in both emotional and sexual intimacy.
A bit about her background:
Piyola’s personal and professional background gives her insight into how identity, culture, and expectation shape the way people experience sex, intimacy, and relationships. She understands how pressure, silence, and mixed messages about sexuality can contribute to shame, avoidance, and disconnection.
Her work is grounded in helping clients move from self-criticism and performance pressure toward clarity, confidence, and relational steadiness.
She holds a Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Alliant International University and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a focus in Human Sexuality from California State University, Northridge.
Piyola Derbarseghian is an associate marriage and family therapist (AMFT 144657) who is supervised by Lauren Consul, a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT 87205).
online support group facilitated by Piyola
Men, Unfiltered
A Group for Men Who Want More Authentic Conversations
Not a surface-level men’s group.
A space for real conversations about pressure, relationships, and the parts of life many men carry alone.
For men who are ready to move beyond isolation and show up more fully.
Piyola’s Specialties At-A-Glance:
- Performance anxiety and erectile dysfunction
- Vaginismus and Genito-Pelvic Pain/Penetration Disorder
- Desire discrepancy and sexual avoidance
- Infidelity recovery and trust rebuilding
- Emotionally distanced or conflict-avoidant relationships
- Sexual trauma and its impact on intimacy
- Shame tied to masculinity or sexual identity
- Sexuality and identity within cultural or religious contexts
- Compulsive sexual behavior and pornography concerns
- LGBTQ+ identity and sexual concerns
- Sex therapy
- Mismatched desire
- Sexual shame or performance anxiety
- Relationship therapy
- Open and non-monogamous relationships
- Infidelity recovery
- Anxiety and overthinking
- Identity exploration
- Cultural and intergenerational conflict
Frequently Asked Questions
Confidentiality is the bedrock of the relationship between a client and therapist. Successful therapy requires a safe environment for you to feel comfortable opening up in order to address the underlying issues you are facing. Anything discussed during our session is not shared with anyone outside what is outlined in my Informed Consent, which all clients are required to agree to and sign before starting therapy. There may be times when you want me to share information with someone else, such as your physician. I can only share information with others with your consent, which requires you to sign a release of information.
State law and professional ethics require me to maintain confidentiality about what we discuss, except in a few specific instances:
- If there is any suspected abuse or neglect of children, elders, or dependent adults, which may require a report to the appropriate protective services agency and/or law enforcement.
- If you are in immediate danger of seriously harming yourself or someone else.
Yes! Online therapy (referred to as “teletherapy”) has been heavily researched and studies show that it is just as effective as in-person therapy. We still get to see each other and personally connect; just over video. There are also unique benefits to online therapy, many of which my clients have told me they appreciate, such as not having to deal with traffic or parking, not having additional commute time, more flexibility with scheduling, and being able to have sessions wherever is most convenient for them.
If you are wondering whether online therapy is a good fit for you, let’s schedule a free 15-minute consultation and you can decide for yourself. Many people are pleasantly surprised at how much they prefer it to in-person therapy.
Piyola can only work with clients that are physically located in California at the time of any session.
Relational therapy (2 or more people) is $175 for 50-minute sessions
Individual therapy is $150 for 50-minute sessions
Piyola offers limited reduced fee spots for those whom her fee would be prohibitive of engaging in therapy with her. Inquire for more information.
Payment may be made by credit or debit card payment, which is due at or before the time of our session. Typically, credit or debit card payment is set up via IVY PAY, a credit/debit card payment service specifically designed for licensed mental health therapists which is HIPAA compliant. IVY PAY is a convenient payment option which securely records a debit/credit card and allows for automatic payment prior to our sessions. Aka, payment is super easy.
Piyola does not take any insurance. She can provide a super bill for clients to submit to their insurance for reimbursement. However, many insurance providers will not reimburse services with an associate counselor. Please contact your specific insurance provider for more information.
Piyola is an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (AMFT 144657), which means that she has completed her formal education and received her master’s degree in marriage and family therapy and is in the process of gaining the necessary clinical experience and supervision required to become a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT).
In order to qualify for licensure therapists must accrue 3,000 hours of supervised post-degree professional experience.
Piyola is supervised by Lauren Consul, an incredibly experienced therapist that specializes in sex and relationship therapy. Lauren is a licensed marriage and family therapist in California (LMFT 87205).
Working with an associate essentially means that you get support from not one, but two, wonderful therapists; directly from Piyola and indirectly from Lauren Consul via their weekly supervision. Piyola is also able to offer a reduced rate from Lauren’s full fee.
You can verify Piyola’s associate registration here, by entering her full name “Piyola Derbarseghian” or registration number “144657”. You can verify Piyola’s supervisor’s license by entering “Lauren Consul” or license number “87205”.
Payment may be made by credit or debit card payment, which is due at or before the time of our session. Typically, credit or debit card payment is set up via IvyPay, a credit/debit card payment service specifically designed for licensed mental health therapists which is HIPAA compliant. IvyPay is a convenient payment option which securely records a debit/credit card and allows for automatic payment prior to our sessions. Aka, payment is super easy.
Piyola accepts a limited number of reduced fee clients her caseload at any given time for clients where her current fee would otherwise make therapy with her inaccessible. Inquire with Piyola to discuss this potential option and to see if she has a reduced fee spot currently available.
Once you book a session time, that time is reserved specifically for you. Piyola requires at least 24-hours notice to reschedule or cancel a session. If you cancel or reschedule with less than 24-hours notice, you will still be responsible and charged for the full session fee.
Your session time is dedicated and reserved for you. If you are late for a session you may join it at any time within your designated time period, but our session will still end at the scheduled time and you will still be responsible for the entirety of the regular session fee.
You have the right to receive a “Good Faith Estimate” explaining how much your medical care will cost.
Under the law, health care providers need to give patients who don’t have insurance or who are not using insurance an estimate of the bill for medical items and services.
- You have the right to receive a Good Faith Estimate for the total expected cost of any non-emergency items or services. This includes related costs like medical tests, prescription drugs, equipment, and hospital fees.
- Make sure your health care provider gives you a Good Faith Estimate in writing at least 1 business day before your medical service or item.
- You can also ask your healthcare provider, and any other provider you choose, for a Good Faith Estimate before you schedule an item or service.
- If you receive a bill that is at least $400 more than your Good Faith Estimate, you can dispute the bill.
- Make sure to save a copy or picture of your Good Faith Estimate.
For questions or more information about your right to a Good Faith Estimate, visit www.cms.gov/nosurprises or call (800) 368-1019.
You deserve relationships, and a sex life, that feel honest, secure, and aligned with who you are.
Ready to take the next step? Schedule a free consultation to see how therapy with Piyola can support your growth, healing, and connection.
