Lesbian Therapists in 94620

Hi there, I'm Adrian. Kudos to you for taking this step and seeking support! It's my goal to provide a compassionate, creative space to work together on what may be holding you back or weighing you down. I see therapy as an opportunity to explore your story and the narratives we've been told, and get to a place where we feel like we're the authors of our own lives. Whether it involves laughing, crying, art-making, deconstructing, deep breathing, crystals, curse words...we get to figure out together what healing might look like for you. (Please note: I'm currently licensed under my legal name, Leyla Antonia Eraslan).

I believe in each person’s capacity for growth and healing and that we are all shaped by our past experiences and intersectional identities. Many of us have learned tools and patterns to get through difficult experiences, however, those patterns may no longer serve us or create barriers to our current growth and relationships. Through a trusting relationship with a therapist, we can create a safe environment to identify and explore these patterns.

My approach balances compassion with being direct. My clients experience care, acceptance and belonging, while also feeling challenged the right amount to grow, change and decrease suffering. I offer empathy while actively engaging my clients by setting weekly treatment goals, building coping tools/resources, and providing skills/knowledge to build self-awareness and integration. We are deeply influenced by our cultural identity and heritage. I am committed to the values of respecting and celebrating diversity, and supporting social/political policies of equal rights and opportunities.

I believe my job is to create a sense of safety in which we can think about the things you might have trouble thinking about. There may be parts of your history that are difficult and frightening to contemplate on your own. Together, we can help you begin to understand yourself, trust yourself, soften toward yourself, validate what is true for you, and eventually accept all the parts of you. I’ll want to understand your current difficulties in the context of your personal and family history, and will listen with curiosity and warmth to understand the way in which your history may be affecting your current situation.

My work ranges from people who have experienced serious trauma, and suffer from depression and anxiety to those who just want to feel better in their lives and their relationships. I love working with couples. I know from my own experience of being married since 1990 that relationships need nurturing and intention. I love helping couples find intimacy that may have been lost. I really see my work as helping individuals and couples live their best life!

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.

I graduated from California Institute of Integral Studies with a Masters in Counseling Psychology, and have done extensive training in Person-Centered Expressive Arts. My clinical background includes focus on community based mental health, family and child therapy, grief and loss, and complex trauma. I currently work in private practice and also as a supervisor at a community based mental health agency.

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.

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.

Without meaning and the chance to therapeutically practice new insights and behaviors, we may suffer unnecessarily during times of high stress, trauma, or in daily life. Feelings may become an overwhelming flood of dread, sorrow or numbness; thinking becomes confused, panicky, and self-critical; joy, spontaneity and self-trust may feel lost. Together we can make good use of your strengths, symptoms and external challenges. Through exploring and deepening our understanding and trust in your own inner world, dignity and liveliness may be restored even under the most challenging or enduring of circumstances, illnesses or problems.

"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.

Life is full of challenges that generate varied degrees of stress, anxiety and depression, even substance abuse. Challenges may include: Personal and family relationships, finances, career, illness and loss of creative engagement with your self and the world. Psychotherapy can offer time and a special place for self discovery, reflection, revitalization, resilience, insight, empowerment and access to your creativity; creative expression and creative living. Our lives can be what we imagine and want them to be. We can develop our active imagination to envision a life of purpose, meaning and the joy we are meant to have.