David Mendelmar, LCSW
Certified Level 3 IFS Therapist
Therapy for trauma, shame, addictive cycles, and painful relationship patterns
If you’re exhausted from carrying this alone—whether it’s addictive behaviors, chronic shame, relational pain, or worry about someone you love—therapy can help reach the deeper places these patterns come from, and begin to create lasting change.
You may be here because…
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you keep finding yourself back in the same painful cycle with substances, food, or other compulsions
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you feel ashamed of behaviors or reactions you can’t seem to stop
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you and your partner keep getting pulled into the same conflict, and you're feeling more and more disconnected
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you’re constantly worried about the behavior of someone you love
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you function well on the outside, but inside feel alone, disconnected, or empty
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you can't shake the feeling that something is fundamentally wrong with you
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you have learned to hide whole parts of yourself out of fear of rejection
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you are desperate for real connection and intimacy
Often, people arrive here after trying to understand, control, or push through what they’re experiencing, only to find themselves back in the same place.
Trying on your own and past therapies have not gotten to the deepest places you know your patterns come from. Lasting change and self-acceptance still elude you.
I specialize in helping clients who need more than insight or coping skills. Grounded in Internal Family Systems (IFS), I help clients understand and transform the deeper emotional patterns beneath their painful cycles.
Relational. Deep. Alive. At your pace.
How I Work
Therapy with me is about feeling safe enough to be fully seen and to go to the deeper places you may not have been able to reach alone.
I actively guide the healing process while you remain fully at choice in our direction and pacing. Many clients come to me after years of therapy that helped them understand themselves intellectually, but did not help them access the deeper emotional places beneath their painful patterns.
My work is grounded in Internal Family Systems (IFS). Together, we slow down with what is happening inside for you in the moment and begin to gently understand the thoughts, emotions, bodily reactions, and inner conflicts that may have felt overwhelming, frightening, or deeply alone.
Often, the patterns that bring people to therapy—addiction, shame, anxiety, emotional reactivity, relationship struggles, or chronic self-criticism—developed for important reasons. Rather than pushing these parts of you away, we come to know them with curiosity, clarity, and compassion, understanding how they helped you survive pain, fear, loneliness, or shame.
As our work deepens, we move toward the more vulnerable emotional experiences beneath these patterns—the places that have often remained locked away while quietly shaping your life. Throughout this process, we cultivate what IFS calls Self-energy: an embodied sense of calm, clarity, confidence, and inner steadiness.
I show up as a real person in the room—engaged, thoughtful, caring, and actively involved in the work we are doing together. I tailor therapy to what feels most alive and useful for you, and we also pay attention to what unfolds between us in the therapeutic relationship itself.
This is not quick-fix work. It is depth-oriented therapy aimed at lasting change: helping you come out of shame and isolation, feel more grounded in yourself, and shift the patterns affecting your inner life, behavior, and relationships.
About
David Mendelmar
I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a Certified, Level 3-trained Internal Family Systems therapist through the IFS Institute. I see clients virtually throughout California and in-person in Davis.
I specialize in working with individuals, couples, and families impacted by trauma, shame, and addictive cycles. My work is informed by advanced training in Intimacy from the Inside Out (IFIO) couples therapy and the Invitation to Change (ITC) approach to helping family members whose loved ones are struggling with substance use and mental health issues. My practice is LGBTQ+ inclusive and neurodiversity-affirming.
Specializations
I work with adults, adolescents, couples, groups, and families. Clients come to me for treatment of such problems as anxiety, depression, PTSD, grief, relationship struggles, ADHD, procrastination and productivity issues, and life transitions. The following represent select specializations I have developed through focused training, clinical practice, and my personal life experience.
Trauma and Attachment Wounding
I specialize in the treatment of attachment wounding, relational trauma, and what has been termed "chronic shame." Relational trauma involves often subtle, long-term emotional neglect, invalidation, criticism, or shaming by caregivers. You may have thoughts such as “nothing really happened to me” or “other people had it so much worse,” because on the surface your basic survival needs were met. Yet deep-down, some part of you knows that a basic emotional need-- for presence and attunement--was never met, or was lost. The trust, connection, and authenticity you so long for remain out of reach. You may have parts that feel intense shame about being vulnerable and seen by others. You may have highly developed tactics of performing, pretending, and isolating that keep you from living your fullest life. I consider such distress to be equally deserving of treatment as any other trauma. I bring a highly relational and sensitive approach to heal the deep wounds of relational trauma..
Eating Disorders and Body Image
I have specialized training in the treatment of eating disorders, including binge eating, anorexia, bulimia, body image struggles, and chronic dieting or restriction. Perhaps you find yourself stuck in cycles of emotional eating or binging and restricting food, dieting, overexercising, purging, and body image obsession– wanting so much to be “normal” around food yet feeling so powerless over extremes of overindulgence and self-deprivation. I bring interpersonal compassion and curiosity alongside research-supported therapeutic practices to help you find safety, balance, and positive relationships with food and your body.
Substance Use and Addiction
My approach to substance use issues is based in compassion. Rather than pathologizing addictive patterns, I help clients slow down their harmful cycles, get curious, and explore the underlying meaning behind their behaviors. I have learned that substance use and compulsions are actually strategies "parts" of us have developed to protect ourselves in times of physical or emotional danger. From this perspective, I help clients heal underlying wounding and vulnerability. Together, we access your power to make different choices and attain the balance and safety you have been seeking.
I believe that recovery is a highly individualized process, and I support clients develop personal understandings of sobriety and abstinence.
LGBTQI+ Affirming Care
I identify as a gay man and I feel passionate about bringing quality mental health care to the LGBTQI+ community. I know what it's like to need the safety of a therapist who "gets" being queer, without having to fear stigma in the therapy space. I hold deep respect for the diverse ways gender and sexuality express themselve across our community and throughout our lifetimes. I work with adolescents and adults struggling to come to terms with their identities and heal from the traumas of living in a heteronormative culture and society. I understand from both my personal and professional experience that coming out and healing from oppression of is a lifelong process. I offer a compassionate and validating approach wherever you are in your personal journey of gender and sexuality.