Emotionally Focused Therapists in 94620

Want to feel more connected in your relationship? I focus on creating a safe and non-blaming space for partners to talk about things that feel difficult. Therapy may not be easy, but I’ll offer guidance and support to help you recognize and break patterns that keep couples “stuck” in a negative cycle. Together we'll explore how past experiences, temperament, values, and culture affect relationships. We’ll discuss tools to help calm intense emotions so that couples can communicate with intention and disagreements can be resolved more effectively.

I specialize in treating Complex PTSD, Panic, Anxiety, Depression, ADHD, gender and sexuality exploration, monogamous and poly relationships, and sexual difficulties. I help people explore and discover who they want to be, what kind of life they want to live, and what they can do to make it their reality. I enjoy helping clients discover who they are and how to find and engage with community.

My approach is friendly and collaborative; working with you to explore reactions, emotional patterns, and thought processes. I encourage honest exchange at your own pace while providing tangible techniques to take into your life. I incorporate mindfulness practices from my training as a yoga teacher. My professional background includes two decades of experience in the conflict resolution field with a focus on assisting individuals and teams who have workplace and academic concerns. I work with people from a variety of backgrounds including executives, university faculty, medical professionals, engineers, and people who work in tech and startups.

Early experiences result in our developing defensive structures that are meant to protect our vulnerability, but also create restrictions in our capacity to feel or perceive what is happening in the moment. This patterning shapes our perception of others, and also of ourselves. Although traditional insight-oriented talk therapy allows for an understanding which can harmonize our awareness with our everyday life, we embody early experience in ways that limit the power of insight to undo, and restrict our emotional intelligence. My orientation to psychotherapy is to work through emotional and experiential patterning, without bypassing the power of understanding.

It can be vulnerable to start therapy; it takes courage. I believe it can be very rewarding and is one of the most powerful paths of transformation. Being in therapy is an opportunity to look at your life, and to learn new ways of relating to yourself, to others, and to your circumstances. This process can ease the pain of whatever difficulty you may be going through. It is an opportunity to not have to be alone with your pain, but to have the support and guidance of someone who is familiar with the terrain of the human psyche.

With over 25 years as a licensed therapist, I am a skilled and compassionate guide in helping people feel better, function better, and have more fulfilling relationships. I am able to understand people from multiple perspectives, how their family system has shaped them, how their attachment style impacts them, how their connections with others cause them joy and pain. I am very present in sessions and have an interactive style, giving direct feedback. You won't find me just listening and nodding, I am there to understand you and collaborate on a plan with you for meeting your goals.

The challenges of growing up in today's rapidly changing society are enormous. Children and adolescents need to be equipped with skills for survival and growth that were never before imagined. Some of the more common issues I help my young clients with include anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicide ideation, perfectionism, self confidence, challenging peer relationships, social anxiety and difficult family dynamics. I also work with parents offering them guidance and support.

If you could change one thing about your life, what would make you happier? Maybe it would be making your relationships with others more satisfying or reducing your anxiety or depression. In individual therapy I help create a safe space to step back and observe your own emotions, beliefs, and patterns of relating to others. My approach is supportive, understanding, non-judgmental but also practical, honest and helpful in finding new solutions and ways to work through difficulties and problems.

My clients are people struggling with a transition in their lives; initiating independence as a teenager or young adult, wrestling with a new gender or new role as a significant other / parent, newly dealing with depression, traumatic memories or substance abuse. My approach to psychotherapy is collaborative and interactive with the goal of creating a safe environment that will enable you to explore your thoughts and feelings related to present difficulties. I work with the idea of relieving one's immediate suffering with the longer term goal of how to better understand oneself and one's relationship to the world around you.

Everyone experiences challenges in life that are too much to bear alone. Trauma can occur as a result of neglect, abuse, loss, betrayal, relationship challenges, sudden changes, natural disasters, war, and really any emotionally overwhelming experience. I work with people who have experienced trauma, who have gone through these types of difficult experiences and seek to heal in an embodied way. I offer many tools including yoga, breath work and EMDR, and will help you find your unique path of healing. If you're facing serious challenges, therapy can truly help. I'm happy to connect to explore if we are a good fit to work together.

"In every person there lies buried deep in the heart a desire for a certain sort of life: a life that is free and unencumbered, a life that is full of beauty, joy and fulfillment" (A H Almaas). Are you experiencing relationship challenges? Do you feel overwhelmed by anxiety or fear? Did you suffer a loss? Are you struggling to find meaning in your life, or are you still troubled by the effects of a difficult childhood? Psychotherapy can offer a path to healing where you can get back in touch with your true nature, and experience this as inherently healthy, whole, and a source of compassion and intuitive wisdom.