Online dating coaching and therapy services for shy introverts and chronically single people
Bay Area Dating Coach is a team of dating coaches and therapists who are passionate about helping singles build happy, meaningful relationships. Whether you’re shy, chronically single, or attracting emotionally unavailable partners, our relationship experts are here to guide the way on your search for love.
For us, helping you find your person isn’t just a job, it’s our joy.
See, we've always been a bit obsessed with love. Fascinated and compelled, we’ve spent years studying human development, attraction, and the building blocks of healthy relationships. And we found scientific backing for our obsessions:
Humans need love and affection. It’s a biological necessity.
It makes us healthy and happy. It gives life meaning.
But because love is so important and because many of us have been wounded, we tend to get all mixed up about it. We crave it yet fear it, reach for it yet feel unworthy, and grab it then push it away. All because we simply don't know how to handle it.
Thankfully, there's hope.
Research tells us that finding and keeping love is a skill that can be learned. And we want to teach you just that.
Through compassionate, action-oriented dating coaching and therapy, we help singles go from worrying they're going to die alone to finding secure, long-term love, sometimes for the first time in their lives.
Our coaches are all highly-trained psychotherapists. Rather than recycling tired tips from the dating-advice-o-sphere (yup, we’re tired of hearing about negging and the three-day rule, too), we will guide you using our masters-level knowledge of how healthy relationships are formed and sustained. Unlike coaches who have completed little more than a weekend certification, we have years of experience helping singles like you build the confidence and skills needed to find love.
Committed To Helping - Our Story
While pursuing a Master of Arts degree in Counseling Psychology with an emphasis in drama therapy, Jessica Engle saw an opportunity to help shy singles develop dating skills and confidence using improv and role-play. She founded Bay Area Dating Coach in 2010, providing creative and cutting-edge coaching services to countless singles locally and worldwide.
While serving singles through Bay Area Dating Coach, Jessica Engle gained the 3000 hours required to become a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (#81850) by providing dating therapy, couples therapy, and social anxiety therapy in private practice. After witnessing hundreds courageously overcome shyness, chronic singleness, trauma, and longstanding relationship conflicts, she felt called to help on a wider scale.
In 2017, Bay Area Dating Coach became a specialty clinic of the Relationship Center (formerly the Engle Center), a talented group of clinicians dedicated to creating a more intimate, kind world by helping people build meaningful relationships. Alongside its sister clinic, Social Anxiety Support Center, Bay Area Dating Coach set out to help as many shy, big-hearted introverts find the courage to finally go after the romantic relationships, friendships, and colleagueships they'd always longed for.
Today, Bay Area Dating Coach is a team of relationship experts who are endlessly enthusiastic about helping singles find love using action-oriented approaches such as drama therapy, mock dates, online dating guidance, and dating skills coaching. Each clinician brings their unique personality, relationship experiences, and background, enabling us to serve a diverse range of clients.
We are driven to create a more loving, securely attached world
At Bay Area Dating Coach our core values are essential to who we are and how we help. Here are the values that guide us.
Love: We are dedicated to helping humans connect deeply. Our therapists bring an unguarded heart to their work, knowing that their care will help clients learn how to accept themselves. With greater self-compassion, our clients are that much more available to build loving relationships with others. We do this work because we want to help build a more loving world.
Culturally Competent Care: We welcome clients of all races, ethnicities, ages, abilities, sexualities, genders, sizes, religions, thinking styles, etc. Our team strives to create a safe place for all people in acknowledgment that the world is not safe for many marginalized identities, and that dating anxiety is a completely understandable response to oppression. We celebrate diversity.
Oomph: Relationships thrive when we are genuine, expressive, and courageously vulnerable. As such, relationship therapy must carve a path towards authentic, wholehearted engagement with others. Our therapists create space for our clients to safely express themselves without judgment by showing up fully engaged, real, and (where appropriate) playful. We walk the talk!
Consistent Kindness: Putting yourself out there can feel awkward and even risky. We recognize the courage it takes to reach out for help, particularly if you’ve had troubling relationships in the past. From your initial intake call through to your final session, we approach every interaction as an opportunity for healing, knowing that responsiveness, consistency, and kindness go a long way towards rebuilding security.
What Our Clients Say
We often hear the following feedback from singles about working with our therapists and coaches.
We were the first therapists to offer them helpful dating guidance (not just “be yourself!”)
We helped them flirt and express interest with confidence
We offered them a clear roadmap for how to improve their love life
We gave them honest feedback (the kind their friends and dates were too nice to offer)
We helped them do the inner work needed to stop attracting unavailable partners
We helped them clarify why they weren’t getting past first or second dates
“I worked with Danielle and she was a wonderful dating coach. I realized my patterns in dating that were not working and led to dead-end relationships. When I finally met my life partner, I never would have considered him, had I not done work around what I was truly looking for. I am happy to say that my boyfriend and I currently have a 5-month old baby boy and plan to become engaged this year!”
What the Media Says
“ Bay Area Dating Coach blends traditional and innovative strategies to help clients succeed in the online dating world. Many of the practice’s clients struggle with anxiety when trying to find a new partner; some haven’t dated for years — or at all. With the help of Bay Area Dating Coach and Founder Jessica Engle, who is a trained mental health therapist, nervous, novice, or unsuccessful daters can learn strategies for finding fulfilling, long-term relationships. Some of the techniques Bay Area Dating Coach uses to help clients include mock dating, in-the-field dating analysis, online dating advice, and drama therapy.”
Dedicated to helping by going beyond dating coaching and therapy services
Our commitment to supporting people to find happy, meaningful relationships spans beyond our dating coaching and therapy services.
We love giving back to our community through sharing content designed to help them and do so regularly through our blog and free resources.
Our content is where singles get research-backed tools to inspire dating confidence and clarity.
We are also available to speak in the community and as guests in the media. Want to get our expert opinion on your content? Reach out and let us know.
We want to help you find love. Get started with your dating coach or therapist today
At Bay Area Dating Coach, we work hard every day to help singles clarify what they want in their love life and go after it with confidence. We’re the therapists and coaches that can help you to a loving, mutual relationship with your person.
Ready to get started? Here's how it works: fill out an application and request a time for a free 30-minute consultation.
Our Care Coordinator will speak with you about your dating challenges and help you determine whether our team is a good fit to help you reach your goals. If so, they’ll help you choose a therapist and get you started with a first session.
You deserve love and we’re here to help you find it.
