Therapists in Grand Lake, Oakland, CA

Are you wanting to feel better once and for all? Maybe you can't move on from the past or you're worried about your future. If anxiety, panic, or even depression is stealing your joy, I get it. If traditional talk therapy hasn't helped you feel better, it's time to try a new approach to heal at the source of your pain. For 12 years I have refined my approach through professional training and experience in Relational-gestalt therapy and Brainspotting (derived from EMDR) while centering social justice and trauma-informed care.

Currently full up and not accepting new clients! - In couples therapy with me, I help by teaching you communication strategies to help lessen defensiveness and increase empathy and warmth in your relationship. I intervene to stop or change interactions that are keeping you from getting the connection you want. I provide mediation and structure for difficult conversations. And by teaching in-the-moment self-regulation and co-regulation techniques, I help you and your partner to speak from and listen with your best selves.

I believe that experiencing loving, nurturing relationships is the best part of being alive. I also recognize that for many of us, creating and maintaining such relationships can be incredibly hard. I view psychotherapy as a means to explore whatever is currently blocking our path to healthy, fulfilling and supportive connections--both to others and to ourselves. Sometimes that means building skills we never learned in the first place. Other times that means examining challenging past experiences. Whatever the circumstances, I am here to support your journey toward growth, fulfillment, and ultimately, greater joy.

I am seeking clients who are open to discovering what makes them unique through a creative and imaginative process; Clients whose goals may range from deeper self knowledge, to decreasing experiences with anxiety and depression, to understanding how trauma plays itself out in their relationships, to being able to resource themselves, etc; Clients interested in exploring their strengths as well as their more scary parts. I believe that pain and suffering are normal emotions and healing happens in connection with others; others who can hold and stay with the difficulty and provide curiosity and support.

We all struggle with emotional upheaval during times of stress and transition. Excessive worry, sadness, shame and hopelessness impact our daily lives and those who love us. Couples and families are challenged with the loss of connection and attachment that leads family conflict and a lack of mutually gratifying relationships. By defining our values and our goals we can learn to clarify what is important in our lives and how to enjoy life despite the many challenges we face.

I believe the purpose of therapy is to create a safe and validating environment where people can focus on creating a "life worth living". I help facilitate this journey by focusing on both acceptance and change in a warm, interactive and thoughtful fashion. If you are someone who is struggling to manage your emotions and behaviors because of anxiety, depression, or trauma we can work together to define the life you want and overcome the obstacles to it.

During unsteady times, we can become consumed and overwhelmed by our own pain and suffering. We may hide from the world and even from ourselves. The idea of being seen may evoke shame, fear, and anxiety that can keep us stuck. In our work together, we will practice navigating the crashing waves of life, diving below what seems to be true, and connecting with something larger than ourselves.

Now Accepting New Clients — Do you feel stuck in the same loops, repeating old patterns, emotional struggles, and self-defeating behaviors? Through a mindfulness-based, somatic, and trauma-sensitive approach, I support you to develop more compassionate awareness to break these cycles, let go of limiting beliefs and be free to live the life you want. Therapy can help you feel more grounded and confident so that you can better navigate relationships, life transitions, and daily stressors. My style is warm, authentic and direct - I'm here to help you develop greater self-awareness and discover new ways of moving through the world.

Sometimes, things happen in life that cause us significant pain, whether this stems from early life experiences, life transitions, mental illness, interpersonal difficulties or unexpected crisis. Navigating through these experiences in a therapeutic setting can make the difference between tolerating the pain (or even resorting to methods of easing the pain that create more problems) and coming through it more resilient with the ability to live a life with meaning.

Whether it's managing a short-term challenge or dealing with a chronic struggle, fear, worry, and feelings of shame can hold an outsized presence in our lives. I work with clients who experience overwhelming anxiety, anger, and depression to build more resilient, rewarding, and value-driven lives. My areas of practice include preteens and high school students, individuals with Borderline Personality and Bipolar Disorder, people on the autism spectrum, and mood disorders that impact anxiety, depression, and sleep.

Are you struggling with how childhood experiences, losses or trauma continues to influence your life? Are you discouraged at repeating difficult situations or find it hard to get out from under depression or anxiety? I'm glad to see how we can put our minds together to understand your dilemmas and see things differently. Change is possible no matter what your age or your life circumstances when you feel seen, accepted and appreciated for who you are and where you've been.

I am a LCSW with over a decade of social work experience in clinic, school, non-profit and community settings. I specialize in working with adults, adolescents and their families, members of the LGBTQI2S+ communities, and with working artists. I have an understanding and dedication to working within a social justice framework, and strive to maintain a practice that is affirming of all identities, experiences and orientations. I believe that any strong therapeutic relationship is built on collaboration, honesty, and the belief that change is possible.

I care deeply about supporting clients on their evolving journey towards healing and returning to the truth of who they really are, and I will always honor your autonomy and unique life experiences as essential to your growth and unfolding. Coming from a first-gen immigrant family, I know that our lives can often be impacted by layers of familial/cultural/systemic pressures, intergenerational trauma, and childhood wounding, and I hold compassionate space to explore these aspects of experience through a holistic and trauma-informed lens. As an integrative therapist, I use a variety of approaches depending on your preferences.

No matter what difficulty you face, together we can find our way through. Most of us change only when what we've been doing completely stops working! In that way, our most challenging times also have the potential to change us in mysteriously positive ways. Let's travel together to find your best life!

As children, and throughout our lives, many of us are taught, through our families, our peers and our culture, that parts of the truth of who we are—our feelings, thoughts, desires, expression or identity—are bad or wrong, and that we must cut off and bury those unacceptable parts of ourselves in order to be loved. We spend much of our lives living with a fractured sense of self, without ever really knowing why we suffer, feel incomplete, ashamed, and never enough, filling the holes in our hearts with poor substitutes for the acceptance, love and connection we so truly need.

The clients I work best with are battling with the effects of relational trauma, which can be especially difficult because most of us don’t even know what relational trauma is. You might think you had a happy childhood, but now as an adult you find yourself struggling in relationships of all kinds. You don’t know how to set boundaries. You feel selfish when you put yourself first. You feel guilty giving people negative feedback The bottom line is on a deep level you feel that it’s wrong to be your true self if it will inconvenience someone else.