Therapists in Tiburon, CA

Nice to meet you! My name is Nicholas and I am excited to meet with you. I am a California local born and raised in Los Angeles but now reside in San Francisco. I received my education in San Francisco and thrive in a city full of advanced technology and innovation. Combining both evidence-based cognitive behavioral therapy and the mindfulness of Buddhist teachings, Acceptance and Commitment therapy has proven healing and useful to many clients. I also enjoy working through your childhood experiences. Together, I can help you develop the competency to face your past, find comfort in the present, and look forward to the future.

Maybe life has taught you that you don’t matter or that’s not ok for you to take space, to express yourself authentically, like you are worth less than others. Maybe you just don’t seem to know how to relate to your feelings or simply feel so much that it feels overwhelming. Maybe you have grown tired of feeling alone or sad, keeping distance from others to feel safer. Maybe you are tired of worrying about what others might say or think and that worrying stops you from doing or saying what you’d like to. Maybe there’s something you always wanted to do, like a dream, but you don’t believe possible.

"Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination...." In Wild Geese, Mary Oliver does not promise salvation, but points to the okay-ness of your being, to the importance of your inner world. How do you, in your imagination, relate to the world? You can find peace inside yourself. I believe therapy is about wholeness-it's not about rejecting who you already are, but about including all aspects of yourself. With compassion and honesty, let's explore the full you so that you may find your inner peace.

Likely you are reading my profile because you or someone you love is suffering and in need of help. There is help. Based on my own experience and over 45 years of solid research concerning the therapeutic process (with the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group) we all have the desire and means to overcome difficulties from the past, some beyond our awareness. Our minds can plan ways to overcome even long-standing problems and suffering. I work collaboratively and compassionately with you to provide the safety and sheltering atmosphere that facilitates your natural impulse toward emotional health.

My philosophy centers on creating a safe and inclusive space where individuals can explore their unique stories and identities. I believe in the transformative power of genuine connection, acknowledging the unique intersections of each person's journey and creating an affirming environment where diverse identities are celebrated.

I provide short- or long-term psychotherapy . My approach is steeped in a mindful and caring relation to oneself and to others. I help my clients find the courage necessary to face and value what has not yet been acknowledged in their life, and to find the potential strengths that have not yet been harnessed. Bilingual: English and French

To others, it seems like you have it all. But underneath lives a different story. Despite your outward success, you feel haunted sometimes by feelings of failure, conflict, self-doubt. At certain moments, a gnawing sense overcomes you, telling you: Something is not right. You've made changes but somehow still end up in the same unsatisfying patterns, repeating the same unhelpful behaviors -- feeling more and more alone. You want to understand your patterns and your past so you can create a different future. You want to learn to feel differently about yourself and how you relate with others. You want to find a different way.

For nearly 20 years I have worked with teens and adults in a variety of settings to help them navigate challenges in their lives and build more meaningful relationships. I work from an integrative approach using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) with a focus on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Relational Psychodynamic Therapy, and Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP). Likewise, I am trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and related somatic-based interventions.

I am a psychotherapist with offices in San Francisco and Marin, and I provide individual therapy for adults and teens. I have a holistic and integrative approach to therapy, helping people to explore and resolve deeper issues that might be holding them back or manifesting as depression or anxiety. I specialize in helping clients to navigate major life transitions, overcome feelings of being stuck or overwhelmed, improve their relationships, and live with a stronger sense of vitality and authenticity.

My focus is on relationships, the relationships we have with ourselves and others, and what is blocking them from feeling joy. I work with individuals and couples primarily focusing on the communication styles and how to improve upon them. I work with the hope of each relationship eventually finding different ways to cope, deepen, and advance into something different and rewarding. I feel all of our experiences in life have led to this moment. Whether the experience was a good one, or a bad one, they have informed our decisions about how to move forward.

It is natural to encounter challenges beyond our understanding and ability to manage that induce stress, anxiety and depression. We may have reached a puzzling crossroads in life, we may be in conflict with ourselves and others, or we may want more harmony and direction in our lives. We may have been deeply wounded or traumatized in childhood. Sometimes all we know is we feel anxious, depressed, or something is missing or wrong. Psychotherapy offers powerful approaches to these issues, and the transformation we seek comes naturally from a genuine, healthy human relationship with a skilled, compassionate psychotherapist.

As a psychologist, I help people who experience anxiety to find a way out. Through my 35 years of working with clients, I know how distressing it can be to live with anxiety. If you constantly worry that something unwanted will happen in the future and find your thoughts racing, making it impossible to relax, if you feel unpleasant sensations in your body and fear that there is something wrong with you, you don’t have to feel alone. I will help you understand how anxiety works in the mind and body. I will help you break the grip it has on you.

I am guided by the principal that the deeper we can look into ourselves, the deeper we can see into the world - by understanding ourselves, we can understand how we are limited - once we know where we are hung up, we can make more adaptive and healthier choices - we can craft the life we prefer to live. In my work with clients, we often uncover long-held family patterns and dynamics that come from histories of addiction, abuse, toxic shame, codependency and trauma. These patterns become increasingly dissatisfying and uncomfortable to live with. I am here to help.

As an experienced Marriage and Family Therapist, it is my privilege to work with individuals and couples who feel emotionally stuck in life due to present situations or past events. I support them in exploring their current behavior or past events which have been the core issues of unhappiness and anxiety. My goal in therapy is to help my clients to make changes by utilizing Solution-focused Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Inner Child Work, and other modalities.

Pain in life is inevitable, but suffering is optional; let me help you move away from the suffering. We live in a culture that has taught us to ignore our emotions and inner intuitive wisdom, and 'think' all situations to death—meanwhile we already have in us all the untapped wisdom we need to face our lives and its challenges. We just need to learn to access this wisdom. Rather than pathologizing our thoughts and behaviors, therapy can be about discovering how you “get in your own way” by not knowing yourself as fully as you might. I am here to help you start to realize your full potential and move away from the suffering.