I can help with:
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My style is relational, warm, interactive, and respectful. I aim to alleviate whatever immediate suffering is possible (offering practical, evidence based tools), however, I work beyond merely addressing symptoms and provide a more holistic therapy for a person: We will address practical life challenges and deeper aspects of your experience, tending to the personal and collective traumas you have lived and are living through. Over our work together, we will look at family dynamics, experiences of oppressions, beliefs, relationship patterns, emotions, dreams, and your overall worldview. Through exploration of the "here and now," we delve into active feelings, sensations, and imagination. Our aim is to understand, tend to, and create meaning of your experiences to help you make the changes you need and want in your life.
I have lived and/or training experience with the following identities: Autism Spectrum (Adults), Closed Community Religious Backgrounds, Intersex, Mixed-race, Non-Binary, Open Relationships and Non-Monogamy, Sex Workers, Transgender, and Vegan.
I want to meet you where you're at and focus on what works for you at your pace. I highlighted below the approaches I integrate:
Relational and Collaborative
"In conversation things can be metabolized and digested through somebody else...whereas you’ll notice that your own mind is very often extremely repetitive. It is very difficult to surprise oneself in one’s own mind."
-Adam Phillips We are wounded in relationships and so we heal in relationships. Working in a relational and collaborative way supports you in becoming more aware of the past experiences and relational patterns that get in the way of you building the relationships you yearn for. I will support you in discovering what you need and want from relationships and how you want to show up in them. |
Systems
"History matters, and an awareness of it puts our lives into a context. A disdain for history sets us adrift, and makes us victims of ignorance and denial. History lives in and through our bodies right now, and in every moment.”
-Resmaa Menakem We live in a multilayered world spanning thousands of years of human history. We have been shaped by that. We will work to understand your unique context so that you will be able to root and orient yourself within human history. We will work in a way that takes into account the impacts of systems of oppression and privilege on your life. I hold space for the anger, the grief, and regrouping during this process. |
The Body
“The body is a multilingual being. It speaks through its colour and its temperature, the flush of recognition, the glow of love, the ash of pain, the heat of arousal, the coldness of non-conviction".
-Clarissa Pinkola Estés Having a body can be a complex experience to say the least. I will support you in nurturing a relationship with your own body so that you can tune into its messages and wisdom. We will patiently and respectfully learn the stories your body needs to tell. We will explore how you can be in open, compassionate conversation with your body. |
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Depth Psychology
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
-C.G. Jung It can be transformative to explore those corners of our psyche where we have repressed, rejected, denied or ignored parts of ourselves that we and/or society deemed unacceptable. When we become aware of those parts and meet them with compassion, we can interact with them and become more fully ourselves. Rather than using our life energy to avoid (we can be REALLY creative in avoidance techniques) what we have repressed, we can use that energy in service of living lives with more self awareness, agency, and meaning. |
Parts Work
"One part of me feels this way but another part of me feels the exact opposite way and I'm stuck."
-We've all been here. I'm trained in and very well versed with Internal Family Systems (IFS). I appreciate the framework and spirit of IFS: A transformative, evidence-based psychotherapy that helps you heal by first connecting to your core Self*, and from there, understanding and loving your protective and wounded inner parts to create inner and outer connection and harmony. *Self is in everyone. It can’t be damaged. It knows how to heal. My working approach with this model is intuitive and adaptable. |
Art and Story
"Art breaks the sea that’s frozen inside us."
-Franz Kafka When we are at a loss for words, we can turn toward art to explore our internal experience. We would collaborate on what kind of creative experience could work for you specifically. You don't have to identify as an artist or creative for art therapy to be supportive. |
Offering in person sessions in Berkeley, CA and virtual sessions to residents of California.
