Meet Anna Balliet | Psychotherapist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Anna Balliet and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Anna, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
I think the work I do has a quiet ripple effect that I don’t always get to see, but I trust is happening. I work primarily with teens and women who are often holding a tremendous amount: anxiety, perfectionism, disordered eating, body image concerns, the weight of contemplating motherhood or moving through a big life transition. A lot of what we’re really untangling underneath the symptoms is this fixation on control, on doing it right, looking right, being enough. And so much of that is inherited. From diet culture, from hustle culture, from messages about what a “good” woman or a “gifted” teen is supposed to look like.

When someone starts to loosen their grip on those expectations, it doesn’t just change their life. It changes how they show up as a friend, a daughter, a partner, or a future parent. The teenage girl who stops the mental gymnastics of deciding everything she’ll eat or not eat in a day becomes the woman who doesn’t pass that anxiety on to her own kid someday. That’s the part I find really meaningful – that the work is generational, even when it looks small in the room.

What should our readers know about your business?
As a teenager I dedicated my whole life to competitive ballet, leaving school early every day to train and spending every summer away at intense training programs. As I started thinking about college, I made the difficult decision to stop dancing competitively so that I could give my academic pursuits a real shot. While studying at NYU, I constantly had an internship that I thought would help best prepare me for the real world. What I didn’t realize is that I never stopped pushing myself to achieve the next thing I thought would help me feel complete or whole. I always did the thing I thought would give me the best chance at success, even if it meant sacrificing my happiness. I was also continuing to struggle with a very complicated relationship with food and my body that was developed over my years dancing.

After graduating, I worked in digital advertising and tech, still trying to understand why I was unhappy at the end of the day. It was through therapy that I started to unpack what those years in dance cemented – a constant fear of losing control and striving for unrealistic standards that were making me miserable. This ultimately led me to take a true risk – go back to grad school and become a therapist myself who could help others identify unrealistic expectations and reconnect with their true potential. I hadn’t realized that the bigger risk all along was staying in something that wasn’t right.

I think a lot of my clients confuse risk with discomfort. They’ll say something feels too risky when what they really mean is it feels unfamiliar, or that other people might be disappointed. Real risk, the kind worth being thoughtful about, is much rarer than our anxiety wants us to believe. So I try to ask myself, and my clients: what’s actually at stake here? What would I lose, and what would I lose by not doing this? Usually the cost of staying small is the one we underestimate. Giving my clients a space to uncover what risks they’re willing to take for themselves is what excites me the most about my work.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I’d want them to experience how much variety this city offers and how there’s something for everyone no matter what area you’re in.

I practice out of Unfolding Self Psychotherapy in Los Feliz, so I’d want to show them around the neighborhood. We’d start by wandering through Skylight Books, which is one of my favorite independent bookstores in the city. Dinner would have to be All Time or Found Oyster for delicious bites and natural wine.

No LA trip is complete without a hike. Griffith Park is the obvious choice. We’d end at the observatory, which never stops being magical to me, especially around sunset if you time it right.

For a day at the beach, I love Manhattan Beach. Long walk on the Strand, lunch somewhere with a view, no agenda.

For relaxation, Wi Spa in Koreatown. If you’ve never done a Korean spa, it’s a whole experience: hot pools, cold plunges, themed sauna rooms, the works.

For entertainment, we’d go to a show at the Hollywood Bowl. Pack a picnic and get there early to settle in. There’s truly nothing like watching the sun go down over the amphitheater with live music starting up. It’s one of those experiences that makes you fall in love with LA all over again, even if you’ve lived here for years.

To end the week we’d go to the Hollywood Farmers Market on Sunday morning. It’s enormous and full of incredible produce!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
The biggest shoutout has to go to the therapists I’ve worked with as a client over the years. There have been a handful of them, and each one was so different. Different modalities, different styles, different things they were attuned to. One of them taught me what it felt like to be really, deeply listened to. Another pushed me in ways I didn’t always love in the moment but absolutely needed. Another helped me access creative and somatic parts of myself that talk therapy alone couldn’t reach. I carry pieces of all of them into the room with me when I sit with my own clients.

I think it’s something people don’t always realize about this profession: a good therapist can’t really do great work without having done, and continuing to do, the work themselves. You can’t guide someone through their own psyche if you’ve never been willing to explore your own. So much of what I offer my clients is shaped by what was modeled for me in terms of the pacing, the curiosity, the willingness to sit in discomfort without rushing to fix. I owe those therapists an enormous amount, and I hope I’m honoring them in the way I show up for the people I see.

And I’d be remiss not to also shout out my partner. He has had this steady, unwavering faith in me through every pivot and every season of doubt. Having someone in your corner who sees you that clearly, especially when you can’t see yourself, is its own kind of gift. So much of what I’ve built rests on that foundation.

Website: https://www.annaballietpsychotherapy.com/

Instagram: @annaballiet

Image Credits
Headshot credit: Alison Yardley
Unfolding Self Offices Photo credit: Gaea Woods