Meet Madeleine Foster

associate
psychotherapist

ABOUT MADELEINE

I come to this work from many angles. Yoga, psychoanalysis, couples therapy, group work, improv, and my own lived experience of emotional intensity, relational confusion, and healing all impact my work as a therapist.

As a yoga teacher for over a decade, I learned the value of staying with experience and noticing what’s happening beneath the surface, to respond with presence instead of panic.

That practice still shapes my work.

Improv is also part of my life and informs my approach to therapy. Improv taught me to meet the moment, be with the unknown, and respond in real time. It’s about listening deeply, attuning to self and others, and creating something alive in the moment. Therapy, too, is unscripted. We don’t always know exactly where we’re going, but we get there together, moment by moment.

My years of experience in Modern Psychoanalysis, in formal training, personal work, and group work, help me listen for what’s being communicated. Much of what drives us isn’t fully conscious. But it can be felt, understood, and worked through in the right kind of relationship.

The rhythms of body, mind, relationship, and play all come together in how I sit with people and help something true and new come forward.

Training + Education

    • Under supervision of Thais Guimaraes LMFT #131058

    • California Licensed Associate Marriage & Family Therapist #139290

    • California Licensed Associate Professional Clinical Counselor #13746

    • Certified in Somatic Psychotherapy, Antioch University (2020)

    • One year program in Psychoanalysis at Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis (2025)

    • Modern Perspectives at Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis (2022)

    • Ongoing consultation with Dr. Claudia Luiz

    • 300-hr SmartFLOW Yoga Teacher Training (2015)

    • 200-hr Yoga Teacher Training at Yasa Yoga (2012)

    • Masters in Clinical Psychology from Pepperdine University (2023)

    • Bachelor of Arts from University of California at Santa Barbara (2012)

    • California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT)

    • Santa Barbara CAMFT Local Chapter (SBCAMFT)

working together


I work with individuals and couples virtually throughout California.

Therapy can be a place where new ways of relating take shape. Where emotion stops being a problem and starts becoming information. Where something begins to move.

Our work might be tender, honest, playful, intense, disorienting, or unexpectedly light. It will be real. And it will be alive.

If something in you is tired of trying to be the “right” version of yourself, and ready to get curious about the real one—we can start there. Whatever you’re carrying, whether it’s confusion, conflict, longing, or just a sense that something isn’t working, I’m ready. Let’s begin.