Attachment-based Therapists in Berkeley, CA

Do you find yourself at a crossroads, with recent events or longstanding issues to sort through and understand? Are you experiencing a challenged relationship, a sadness lingering from Covid isolation, anxieties, a shake up of self esteem, or a desire to re-calibrate life/career goals? What do you want to release and what to retain as learning? I offer compassionate, supportive, resourceful, pragmatic collaboration to help you balance these awarenesses. Together, we will set achievable goals and reclaim your resources within, so that you, and your relationships can move forward in a positive way.

Thank you for reading my bio. My focus in our work will be on meeting you where you are at and in creating a safe, non-judgmental space where we can collaborate and explore what can be helpful in addressing your needs, wants, and barriers to getting them met.

I am passionate about offering strengths-based and client-centered therapy while providing a safe and welcoming atmosphere to help clients navigate through the challenges that life may bring. I will focus on your strength and your progress along the way. I have supported many members of the LGBTQIA community with a variety of concerns, including assisting some on their gender journey. I have also supported women with trauma, clients with anxiety disorders, and issues around perfectionism, identity, and purpose. I have also enjoyed working with adolescents and those that dance to the beat of their own drum.

Therapy is a private space for you to get help with issues that have become overwhelming to you, out of your control, or urgent in some way. Sessions are designed to help you clarify the nature of the problem, identify clear goals, and set a course for recovery/healing. Talking together in ways which nurture curiosity and compassion, we will look at what troubles you, what brings you hope. We will be attentive to the past, but our focus will be on how the past's legacy is impacting your life now. Our work will be relieving of past pains/traumas and will bring more calm and ease, a greater sense of connectedness in present time.

I enjoy working with children and adults to help them find grounded ways of being with and moving through the struggles they face. I believe that strong relationships, with the self, the body, and with others, are central to a healthy lifestyle. Painful life experiences, transitions, trauma, anxiety, and depression are opportunities for growth, and helping people move through these challenges is incredibly rewarding. I love working with people of diverse sociocultural backgrounds and exploring how culture shapes experience. A deep understanding of development allows me to connect with people of all ages and help them move through difficult stages.

I am a family systems psychotherapist working with individuals and families confronting complex mental health, behavioral, substance abuse and relational challenges that often break families apart. I support individuals and families towards finding sustainable solutions that restore trust, connection and peace. My style is relational, warm and direct. Together we seek to uncover roots causes while I use a trauma and attachment informed lens to collaborate with you towards healing and resolution. My formal training and clinical experience lend well to both solution-focused work as well as depthful healing.

Many of my clients are disabled, queer, and trans. I love to support individuals and families in finding and shifting cycles that keep them stuck. This can look like a cycle of anxiety that keeps swirling and growing no matter how much you try to avoid or reassure it. Or like families that are caught in challenging cycles of communication, who are working to shift things but feel caught in old patterns. My clients are often impacted by multiple layers of social and internalized stigma. Specific issues my clients seek care for include OCD, ADHD, depression, trauma, bereavement, and identity development around disability and gender.

Clients seeking my services are looking for a safe and supportive space where they can bring their whole authentic selves. Common areas that I explore with clients center around identity, trauma, managing anxiety and stress, depression reduction, relational and attachment, managing imposter syndrome, improving self-esteem, and increasing communication skills. I work with adolescents (16 and up), adults, and families. I am particularly interested in working with individuals entering therapy for the first time, people of color, and marginalized communities.

The deep questions we struggle with include; what's not working in my relationships, work life, or myself? How does a person change so that they can get unstuck and pursue what is meaningful? These are the questions we'd explore and answer together. By appreciating both conscious ideas and the pull of unconscious and historical forces, we would focus on what can be understood, what can be altered, and what must be accepted.

Are you struggling with relationships? Are you having the same fight with your partner over and over? Have you lost the emotional connection you used to have? Intimate relationships touch our deepest relational wounds. That's why we can be overwhelmed with the pain they bring and often, at points, feel like giving up. We can heal those wounds and help each other in that process. The kind of couples therapy/marriage counseling and individual therapy that I provide combines deep experiential work with teaching, coaching and practicing many specific relational skills that will set you up for success in all your relationships.

As I have supported youth, adults, and families as a therapist since 2007, I have found the importance of providing compassionate services to support the healing process to those seeking it. I have experience and extensive training in the area of Trauma Recovery (including working with survivors of child abuse, domestic violence, human trafficking, oppression, gang involvement, and community violence). I have also provided services in supporting individuals with improving upon their self-esteem and interpersonal relationships.

Creativity can be foundational to positive and longstanding change. We come into the world with an innate skill to solve the many problems that arise during development. Sometimes these solutions bring up new challenges or get in the way of our relationships and our ability to enjoy life. I work with children, adults, elders, and couples who are struggling to adapt to a stressful world. By developing a trusting relationship where exploration is welcomed and analyzed, we are able to find new ways of functioning, new solutions to our interpersonal conflicts, and improve our ability to flexibly adapt to our changing world.

Developing and maintaining a vital and fulfilling long-term relationship is one of the most difficult challenges we face in our lifetimes. I see impasses and breakdowns such as extensive arguing, lack of desire or estrangement as "natural and necessary failures" that point towards deeper individual issues that need to be addressed and worked through. In couples' sessions I help each partner to find a differentiated stance, interrupt dysfunctional patterns and develop healthier ways of relating and dealing with conflicts. In addition to working with couples and individuals, men's issues have been a focus of my interest for three decades.

Dissatisfied with your relationship to a partner, boss, or yourself? Do things feel out of control? Finding a good fit with a therapist can play a vital role in getting more of what you want in life. I see myself as someone who guides and facilitates a committed, compassionate and confidential space where we can clarify what is most important to you, and discover the blocks that get in the way of having the life that you want. In my practice I help individuals and couples find their own way to lasting changes.

I am a Marriage and Family Therapist licensed by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. I have been working with families - specializing with adolescents and young adults for almost three decades. I provide interactive, solution focused therapy. My hope is to help you to be present with the here and now, to experience life with awe, humor, gratitude, and kindness towards oneself.

Dr. Akshay Naresh is a clinical psychologist and has worked with patients across the lifespan in various contexts including community mental health clinics, hospitals, and educational facilities (secondary, community colleges, & universities). He has experience working with a wide range of mental health concerns including stress, anxiety, depression, chronic pain, body image issues, eating disorders, relationship issues, gender and sexual identity, and multi-cultural issues. He uses an integrative approach to create a space for meaningful life changes by helping patients develop self-compassion, self-acceptance, and self-awareness.

Therapy is an opportunity for getting support when we recognize that the old ways of coping with challenging life situations are no longer working. You may feel that seeking professional help is the last resort. In fact, it is the most important step. In my practice, I provide a warm and collaborative environment to support clients in making positive changes to live healthier, happier, and more productive lives. I see adults, adolescents, and couples with a wide variety of issues and concerns including depression, anxiety, PTSD, childhood trauma, relationship difficulties, sexual issues, anger management, and substance abuse.

Welcome to my private psychotherapy practice for women. It takes courage to reach out and seek the help that you deserve. Whether you are struggling with pregnancy and family planning; relationships and parenting; career and work/life balance; or direction and life purpose - just know you are not alone. I provide a safe collaborative space where we can unpack challenges at your own pace with curiosity and compassion. Together we can discover how life's obstacles often become opportunities for healing, transformation and personal growth.

I help singles over forty develop the capacity to find, create & maintain the best romantic relationship of their life. I work with people who want the self-awareness and skills for satisfying long-term intimacy, want to understand past patterns, heal old wounds, quickly assess who's a good match, & create a foundation for new relationship that's healthy and supports their deepest needs. I've taught graduate level Human Sexuality, & offer expertise w/ all elements of relationship satisfaction. As a writer I also help re: online profiles, to attract the best match. You'll get weekly tasks to accelerate progress toward your goals.