Ashley French, MSW

About

Ashley French, MSW, works with adults, couples, families, and adolescents, particularly during times of significant life transitions. Ashley creates a non-judgmental, supportive, and genuine space for clients to explore their emotions, relationships, thought patterns, and past experiences. She tailors her therapeutic approach to each client's unique needs by integrating cognitive, behavioral, and trauma-informed modalities. Her work is grounded in meeting each client where they are and empowering them to move toward meaningful change.

Ashley’s clinical focus includes treating clients experiencing the immediate impacts of recent or continuing trauma, as well as those working through long-standing trauma and PTSD, including trauma related to domestic and sexual violence. She also works with clients experiencing depression, anxiety, emotional dysregulation, interpersonal conflict, mood and personality disorders, and significant life transitions such as career changes and grief or loss.

Ashley primarily offers in-person services in our Falls Church office and telehealth through the state of Virginia.

Specialization

Ashley provides individual therapy, couples therapy, parent coaching, co-parenting coordination and family therapies to families navigating the effects of separation, divorce, and high-conflict family dynamics.

When providing couples therapy, Ashley helps partners navigate relationship challenges with a focus on repair, clarity, and growth. Ashley grounds her couples work in the principles of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), guiding couples to identify and break cycles of disconnection, navigate conflict more effectively, strengthen secure attachment, and deepen emotional intimacy.

Ashley is especially attuned to working with clients engaged in the complexities of the family law system. With specialized clinical training and experience in this area, she understands the unique intersection of emotional, psychological, and legal issues that accompany separation, divorce, parenting disputes, and high-conflict family dynamics.

Ashley has extensive experience working with individual clients at every stage of the separation and divorce process, helping them navigate difficult decisions, manage the emotional impact of relationship breakdown, and develop practical plans for moving forward. Her work includes supporting clients experiencing trauma associated with relationship dissolution, as well as the psychological effects of domestic violence, intimate partner violence, and coercive or controlling relationships.

Ashley is a trained Co-Parenting Coordinator, working with parents and guardians navigating separation, divorce, or ongoing co-parenting challenges. As a neutral party, she guides co-parents to improve communication, reduce conflict, establish healthy boundaries, implement parenting plans, and develop effective strategies for making child-centered decisions.

Ashley also provides Parent Coaching to parents and guardians seeking practical, evidence-informed guidance in navigating the unique challenges of parenting during periods of family transition, conflict, or involvement with the family law system. Ashley works with parents to strengthen their parenting skills and build confidence to better respond to their children's developmental and emotional needs to best create the stable, supportive environment needed to promote the children’s well-being.

Education, Training, and Professional Experience

Ashley earned her Master of Social Work degree with a concentration in Adult Mental Health and Trauma from the University of Denver. She also holds a Master of Legal Studies degree from American University, which provided her with a foundation in family law and allowed her to work in the family law field to better understand the legal impacts of high-conflict divorce and custody disputes.

Throughout her professional training, Ashley has completed advanced training in high-conflict divorce coaching, parent coaching, and parenting plan implementation, supporting survivors of domestic and sexual violence, and evidence-based couples therapy, including Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and the Gottman Method. She is also trained to serve as a mental health professional within the family law system.