Santa Cruz Family Therapy, PC - Santa Cruz, California

Whitney Perry

I have been seeing Carol for 5 years, both in person and online. She is an excellent therapist and I would recommend her to anyone looking for a safe, understanding, and judgement free professional. Therapy has changed my life for the better, and I’m very grateful for Carol’s help. Also she is easy to schedule & communicate with which is nice as my schedule is always in flux.

Matt Furman

I am deeply concerned for any clients treated by Carol Bass.

At the intro session, she demonstrated a fumbling lack of emotional insight and little knowledge of basic psychological processing concepts (such as the difference between a need and a strategy, etc.). Her active listening skills were chaotic, as she asked questions rapidly, then regularly interrupted after one sentence to speak again. At more than one point, she brought herself and her own experiences to the table to compare situations, and her facial expressions seemed to be guarding agitation and anger from some experience outside the session.

Due to the sheer absence of other therapists in the area with available space, I reluctantly agreed to go back to see her for a dual session to support my wife. This was a catastrophic mistake. In this session she became condescending and forceful within seconds of starting the conversation. She insisted on setting up "rules" for how to speak, such as 'not speaking about people's tendencies in the abstract,' then proceeded to immediately break them herself a few minutes later as she again brought her own personal history into the session. She continued the cycle of questions and immediate interruptions, pushing emotional platitudes at best, compounded with moralizing 'should' statements and unwanted advice at worst. When I finally became frustrated enough to point out to her that the goals we set at the start of the session had been lost (we were very specific in wanting to process the situation, not hear what 'should' be done about it) and that her insights were off base, she became actively bitter and nasty---glaring, scrunching her face, making judgmental comments and inflecting her speech with pretentious and sanctimonious eye rolls, grunts and sighs.

Even given how negative this all was, my wife opted for a final solo session with her out of desperation to process her distressing family situation. She left absolutely demoralized and came home devoid of any willingness to return. She shared that Carol lacked any comprehension of the mechanics of guilt induction or the harm that it can cause, tried to actively goad her to sacrifice her needs and feelings to placate others (an utterly shocking thing for a therapist to do), and then actually used part of the session time to try to retaliate against me for calling her out in the previous session by attacking my character. Think about that for a minute, as you consider the trust and faith it takes to share intimate details of your life with a counselor...

Be warned. Carol Bass is not a skilled practitioner. She is an angry person with an agenda who allows her own personal insecurities and fears about the world to corrupt her therapeutic method, and for the unfortunate clients who do not realize it, likely does active harm to their emotions, thoughts and self esteem.

Juliana Brown

I have been going to Carol for therapy for the past 5 years .
She’s a excellent therapist her skills on how to give her patients tools to better and understand what what they are going thru, is vital to any one looking to better their life /relationships.