Lupita Martinez, LMFT at Therapy of the Sun

is a bilingual and Chicana Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist raised in South Bay LA. Growing up, she moved around a lot so she grew up in the cities of Lennox, Inglewood, and Hawthorne.

She took a short break from the South Bay to get her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology at University of California, Berkeley and returned home for her Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology from CSU Dominguez Hills in Carson, CA. Born and raised in a Mexican family, she absorbed her family’s examples and spirit of humility, hard work, and dedication to helping one another.

She has always held a genuine interest in Latinx mental health and her thesis and research aligns with this. Her master’s program thesis focused on Latinas experiencing symptoms of anxiety and depression due to their internal struggles related to the many roles they adhere to. A lifelong student herself, she has received training in various evidenced based therapy models such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Problem Solving Therapy and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). Lupita recently became Certified EMDR Therapist in 2024 and is currently an EMDR Consultant in Training.

Lupita is aware of how important it is to continue to provide treatment from a wider framework, taking into account generational and historical trauma that many have been experienced. Even though she has been trained in Eurocentric* therapeutic theories and practices, she is able to take this knowledge while still addressing the whole person – mind, body, heart, and spirit. Lupita takes pride in identifying herself as a holistic therapist, utilizing not only her learned skills but intrinsic skills of spirituality, intuition, connection, and understanding of other forms of medicine. If you are interested in hearing more about her use of holistic medicine, please reach out.

Being a first generation student herself, she has experienced her fair share self-doubt, feelings of not belonging, and toxic traits of perfectionism and overworking (all aspects of impostor phenomenon, also known as impostor syndrome). This has been very apparent in her academic and professional journeys. Her passion is working with other first generation professionals of color and helping them understand the complexities of their thinking and how its influenced by not only their upbringing but their environments. Her goal is to not only teach clients to build a connection to their own intuition, but to build self-worth (outside of their accomplishments) and motivate them to learn to tune in to their bodies in order to foster an environment for patience and self-compassion. Knowing “perfectionism” and doing “the most” first-hand, she is well aware of the complexities and influences that arise in being a first-generation female of color.

*Eurocentric is used here to describe a therapeutic worldview that is centered on a Western individualistic civilization and has been influenced by many centuries where lack of inclusion and lack of representation has been seen in the field of psychology.