The new wave of mental health is here.

WE ARE TOPANGA RIDGE GROUP.

Discreet, referral-driven, integrative mental health care in Topanga and virtually worldwide.

Topanga Ridge Center provides integrative mental health care that bridges ancient wisdom and modern science. We serve as a refuge from systems that pathologize, guided by the understanding that healing is not just about feeling better... it is about getting better at feeling.

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Traditional Care Vs. Integrative Care

Traditional Care

  • Labels disorders and prioritizes DSM/ICD categories.

  • Goal is to eliminate or suppress symptoms as quickly as possible.

  • Clinician seen as expert who directs treatment.

  • Pharmacological intervention emphasized as the primary solution.

  • Reliance on evidence-based, one-size-fits-all methods.

  • Substance use framed as a disease requiring total abstinence (often 12-step or medical detox).

  • Clients usually enter during acute breakdowns.

  • Client identity tied to diagnosis; struggles defined as 'disorders.'

  • Less focus on trauma, environment, relationships, or culture.

  • Aim is to manage crises and return to 'baseline functioning.'

Integrative Care

  • Focuses on lived experience, meaning, and values rather than labels.

  • Symptoms understood as signals of deeper needs; healing aims at transformation and integration.

  • Therapist and client work as partners; trust and autonomy are central.

  • Medication is one tool among many (nutrition, movement, mindfulness, community, ceremony).

  • Tailored to the individual’s history, culture, and goals.

  • Emphasizes safety, dignity, and gradual change—even if abstinence isn’t immediate.

  • Supports people before crises emerge; attends to long-term flourishing.

  • Clients seen as resourceful, creative, and capable of growth.

  • Considers trauma, relationships, ecology, spirituality, and systemic factors.

  • Integration, self-understanding, and sustainable well-being are the goals.

Services

THERAPY

Individuals, couples, families, children

CONCIERGE CARE

24/7, real time guidance when its needed most

INTENSIVES

Custom day intensives & 12- week programs for

  • Relationships

  • Addiction

  • Crisis

  • Transformation

Meet the Team

Rigorously trained, radically compassionate.

Becca Braren, MA, PhD Candidate
Founder & Executive Director

Becca Braren’s work weaves together clinical study, ancestral ceremony, and decades of guiding people through crisis and transformation. Trained at CIIS, Antioch, and Pacifica, she is completing her PhD in Sociology on alternative healing worldwide and has trained with elders of diverse indigenous traditions across the globe. Her work is rooted in the belief that people are not broken; it is society that breaks. Drawing from humanistic psychology, harm reduction, and ancestral wisdom, she supports deep, enduring change.

  • Over the past two decades, Becca has worked with individuals and families navigating addiction, trauma, grief, and transformation, including clinicians, artists, first responders, and high-profile professionals. Her work spans traditional therapy settings, ceremonial contexts, and intensive recovery environments, always centering relationship and trust as the foundation for healing.

    Becca works outside the licensure system in principled protest of its limits because real healing can’t be standardized; it asks to be met person to person, moment to moment.

Hannah Saltzman PhD
Clinical Psychologist & Program Director

Hannah was born and raised in Paris, France, and moved to the United States to attend Smith College in Massachusetts, where she graduated with a double major in Psychology and English Literature. After working as a data analyst in the pharmaceutical industry, she realized she did not want to dedicate her time to a field that profits from human suffering.

  • She earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology from Palo Alto University in California, focusing on abnormal psychology, sex and gender identities, geriatric psychology, and neuropsychology. Her dissertation explored the concept of intolerance of uncertainty and its impact on mental health.

    During her training with LA County, she worked with a wide range of individuals and witnessed the limitations of traditional mental health systems. After completing her PhD, she chose not to pursue licensure, turning instead toward alternative paths for healing—honoring Eastern philosophies, nature-based therapies, and creative approaches that reconnect the spirit with body, community, and change.

  • Jevon Nally

    ALTERNATIVE RECOVERY SPECIALIST

  • Tisha Marina

    MAYAN ANCESTRAL HEALER

  • Jessica Cousens

    ECO-THERAPIST

  • Wilson Moreno

    CLINICAL COORDINATOR

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Our Specialites

Treatment-Resistant Disorders

Addiction & Trauma
(Alternative Approaches)

High-Profile Individuals & Families

Support for Clinicians & Healers

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  • "Becca Braren is a healing legend. Words cannot express the immense gratitude I feel for the profound internal and external transformation that began to happen in my life shortly after working with Becca. She is a true healer in all forms."

    - Aishah S. 

  • "Becca saved my life. I was in the darkest chapter of my life and working with her rescued me. She offers incredible empathy and presence, and approaching everything with a true healer's spirit. Since 2022, I have worked with her and have been renewed again and again."

    - George A. 

  • "I was blown away by Becca's abilities and intelligence. She won't keep you stuck in the chair for years, her goal is to heal effectively and efficiently so you can get on with your life in a positive and meaningful way. Cannot recommend Becca enough. Her approach and insight is life-changing."

    - Shayne A.

  • "I find Becca extremely warm and caring, she definitely creates a safe space, the tools she provides for healing myself and my marriage are amazing, I highly recommend her! "

    - David D. 

  • "Becca has given us such amazing tools and has helped us cultivate presence, so we can honor our triggers and how we handle them. Becca’s approach is exactly what my husband and I wanted, she gives you tools so you can focus on other things than therapy forever."

    - Lisa D.

"Dramatic, poignant & needed. It's a great project you've initiated."

Dr. Gabor Mate - advisor and collaborator

WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY

Let’s explore where you are, what you need, and how we may be able to help.

Submit your information and our coordinator will reach out to schedule a complimentary call.