LGBTQ+ Affirming Therapists in San Anselmo, CA

Hi! I’m Giselle (they/she/he). I’m a clinical psychologist specializing in trans/queer mental health (including gender-affirming hormone and surgery letters) and sex therapy. Throughout my career, I’ve oriented my work toward serving trans and queer community. I completed a postdoc in LGBT mental health, previously worked at the San Francisco VA’s Trans Health Clinic, and currently work as a gender specialist for Kaiser San Francisco. I provide continuing education courses for psychologists on LGBT-related topics and have presented my work on adapting therapy modalities for trans and queer folks.

The roadblocks and challenges we all long to avoid often contain hidden gold. We can find this valuable treasure when we learn to relate to our pain differently. In my work I help my clients learn to release unnecessary suffering and meet the difficulties they cannot change. This brings an increased capacity for happiness. I help my clients release the need for perfection and move instead towards wholeness and completeness - holding both the joy and sorrow of life. When we learn to hold our 'broken' places with compassion, we feel more whole.

I'M A LICENSED MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPIST in private practice in Fairfield and San Anselmo, CA where I work with adults, couples and children for self-esteem problems, anger, depression, grief, anxiety, impulsivity and PTSD symptoms. I also have a specialty in gender identity issues and the dysphoric feelings, grief and loss, relationship difficulties and other issues that often accompany these conditions. My style blends real life experience, knowledge, humor and compassion. My approach includes relational, psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral styles, offering a flexible, responsive, non-authoritarian and empathetic quality.

I am a licensed clinical psychologist, a certified relapse prevention specialist, and a registered art therapist. I provide individual therapy for adults and adolescents in Marin County and Sonoma County . I help my clients' to learn how to set clear limits with others and how to create healthy boundaries for oneself; as well as to learn what your own personal boundaries look like. I assist people in discovering how to lead meaningful and authentic lives; and to become self-actualized. I guide my clients in refocusing on what makes him or her most human: creativity, agency, free will, intentionality, self-determination, imagination, and values.

As a bilingual (Eng/Span) licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, I have vast experience treating diverse populations of all ages struggling with trauma, depression, anxiety, mood disorders, and personality disorders. With a background in Gestalt, trauma-informed care, and prenatal counseling, I treat individuals and couples in a private practice setting where I incorporate and integrate various modalities, along with somatic techniques, parts work, resourcing, mindfulness, and transpersonal psychology. “With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.” - Max Ehrmann

Welcome. If you have found yourself here you are probably looking for relief. My passion and experience focuses around helping others find clarity and balance. We each have different histories, needs, patterns of thinking, and struggles. All of us develop strategies of protecting ourselves that have been useful in the past but have become outdated. It's important that we move toward ways that currently work; that help guide us toward the most peace and happiness possible. Guiding individuals toward getting to know, accept, and thrive in one's own self and in relationship is something I am dedicated to.

Life has never been particularly easy, but lately we are faced with additional stress. As a psychologist, I meet with men and women, couples and families who are coping with conflict in their marriages, conflicts with their children, financial pressures, and workplace stress. Things might seem so overwhelming that we despair of ever recapturing the happiness and optimism that we once might have had. I can show you ways to reduce your anxiety, and develop new coping strategies to improve interactions in your family, your relationships and your workplace. You can find confidence and recapture a sense of well being.

Are you struggling in an important relationship? Do you find yourself playing out familiar, painful patterns wondering how to make a change? Is there a nagging sense that you're holding yourself back in your life? I am here to help you find the fertile, solid ground inside yourself from which you can nurture a life and relationships in which you wholeheartedly thrive. My approach to psychotherapy with couples and individuals is collaborative and unique to each client, but one element remains core: building a foundation of respect, trust, transparency, and loving-kindness from which real growth and change can occur.

Each of us has the innate wisdom to guide us towards well-being, yet sometimes, we need help accessing that inner voice. Whether you are seeking short-term, issue specific solutions to your relationship, family or work challenges, or wanting to delve more deeply into freeing yourself from patterns that keep you stuck, I offer a compassionate style, rich in understanding and humor. I have taught mindfulness to teens and adults at Spirit Rock since 2002. And in our work together, I can offer tools to help you learn how to pause and skillfully listen to the wisdom within.

I have over 25 years of experience treating individuals, couples, families and groups. I work with a wide spectrum of psychological issues including but not limited to relationship difficulties, mood and anxiety disorders, addiction and grief. I have advanced training in couples counseling, eating disorders and mindfulness practices . My work is informed by family systems, cognitive behavioral and attachment theory.

Perhaps you're down or anxious - maybe you're unsure about how to move forward, or just feel that you aren't living the life you were meant to lead. Therapy is a process of growth and self-discovery, and in my sessions I promote transformation by engaging your deeper self, along with the most current therapeutic approaches. This often includes support for issues like anxiety, relationship and communication problems, and dysregulation and trauma. I also work with the changing roles and shifts in identity that occur throughout the life cycle.

I have worked with adults, predominantly licensed professionals and executives and their partners work through challenging dynamics in both their personal and professional lives. Finding the motivation to create change and capitalizing on that motivation is essential to enhancing awareness and acceptance of life's struggles. You don't have to suffer to get your needs met, you just need to be open to a different way of approaching your current and past issues. I have no judgment for how you have survived to date but nothing changes if nothing changes. I'm here to collaborate with you to do things differently. I support you implicitly

I specialize in serving GIFTED PROFESSIONAL AND CREATIVE ADULTS AND COUPLES. Being gifted is a minority experience, which is hard to own or talk about due to cultural (mis)attributions of elitism and arrogance, so many gifted people have not explored this aspect of their identity and how this may be related to difficulties in their life. You may feel out of step with the world or misunderstood, and not know why, or that you have to hide aspects of yourself. Or have trouble making friends, be told you’re "too intense", feel socially awkward, not understand why others seem to respond negatively to your ideas, or feel deeply disappointed with the world’s imperfections. IN MY OFFICE, YOU CAN BE UNRESERVEDLY YOURSELF. Talking frankly about being gifted can improve your self-esteem and offer relief from self-doubt, loneliness, anxiety, or depression, as you develop strategies to meet the majority culture more effectively. Before becoming a psychologist, I worked for 25 years in startups, nonprofits, academia, and F500 companies. I hold a Stanford MBA and Berkeley MSEE, and have special training in assisting gifted clients. I've also published research on the creative process.

Are you or your family under stress, or does personal tension or relational conflict rule the day? Are you experiencing a transition, a divorce, a loss, or have new partners entered the family picture? Do you worry that your child is depressed or anxious? Do you worry that you are not a good parent? For over 25 years, I have been helping people like you successfully resolve these issues. I help adults navigate individual and marital challenges and parents master the skills that parenting requires. I help teens make better choices as they come to know themselves.

I have been in practice as a licensed psychologist for the past 28 years in Marin County where I was also born and have raised my two boys. My approach to assessment and therapy is integrative as it attempts to consider all relevant biological, psychological and environmental influences on a person’s current well-being. Sessions leave ample space for depth-oriented, psychodynamic/attachment based processing of inner struggles and vulnerabilities. They also include collaborative, practical, and hands-on problem solving as well as exploration of cognitive behavioral tools and strategies appropriate to the developmental age.

“We are seeking for life ourselves with our feet. Life is what we ask for that is why the dancers are told: ‘Dance, dance hard.’” - Sauk Fox, White Buffalo Dancer. We all seek to travel the roads of life with light feet and levity, but we don’t all wake up with the tools we need to dance our way through the day. Sometimes we find ourselves living far outside the present moment, lost in thoughts of our childhoods or conversations we had with loved ones months ago. There are mornings when the gravity of bed keeps us stuck under the covers like a funeral shroud and sunshine is an insult.

Did you grow up in an unstable household with challenging parents? Do you struggle with holding boundaries and saying no? Do you feel like you keep repeating negative patterns in relationships? I work with adults/couples who struggle with anxiety, trauma, family/partner relationship issues and consequences of childhood abuse and neglect. My specialty is in working with adult children of narcissistic/borderline parents and how early childhood experiences affect the individual’s adult relationships. Additionally, I help clients improve communication, build healthy relationships, set healthy boundaries and advocate for their needs.

Does this describe your current state? You are feeling stuck during a difficult life transition, or realize that you have to resolve issues that you have been carrying with you. Or, you are the parent of a teen who is struggling and your family needs professional support to gain ground at this time. Your teen son or daughter could use a compassionate and skilled guide through the turbulent time of adolescence. If you, or your teen, has a trauma to be resolved, are stuck in your life circumstances, or in feelings that are overwhelming, then you have found help! Living a full, healthy life is possible!

It shouldn’t be a big deal. People seem to be able to handle stuff like that with no issues. But somehow, that memory is stuck in your mind and just won’t go away. It might not seem very serious or traumatic, but you think about that experience over and over. It plays like a skipping record in your mind. It may have been something painful that affects your everyday life - overwhelming you. Or something that’s been impacting you for a while now, sapping your energy, and you don’t want to lose sleep over it anymore. You’re tired of this repeating pattern and are ready to do something about it!