Therapists in Oakland, CA

I enjoy in working with; self esteem & worth, trauma healing & recovery, body image & body positivity, disordered eating & relationship to body, belonging as our birthright, transforming deep shame into liberation, body & sex shame, relationships and boundaries, anxiety, stress & hyper-vigilance, nervous system imbalances, life transitions & identity, honoring grief, loss & death, life threatening illness, cancer, auto-immune disease, rites of passage, aging, adolescence, menopause, women's empowerment, highly sensitive people & empaths, people pleasers, intergenerational trauma & ancestral healing, mothering & the mother wound.

My approach to counseling begins with careful listening to understand your unique situation and personal goals. I will listen without judging you or rushing to a quick fix that might not be applicable for your specific situation. Many of my clients enter counseling feeling alone or overwhelmed by feelings of sadness, anxiety, anger, or stress. They may feel stuck in painful relationships that aren't working, or stuck with intense feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, dread, or inner pain. My treatment approach is gentle, educational, and experiential.

I am here to be present with you as you explore and process how the vast injustices in the world may be affecting your internal states. Together we can examine the question: Is there something “wrong” with me as an individual, or do we live in an inequitable society that causes emotional and often generational trauma? Our trauma can lead to behaviors that do not ultimately serve us or align with our core values—but there is room to heal. Your ancestral roots, intersecting identities, and cultural practices are an honor for me to make space for in our work together.

I am passionate about working with those who struggle with relationships and boundary setting, and clients who struggle with balancing differing sets of expectations due to cultural, physical, or mental factors. I also work with couples from differing backgrounds to deepen mutual understanding and couples struggling through a difficult phase in their relationship looking to increase communication and understanding. I work well with people from diverse cultural backgrounds, immigrant and first and second generation individuals and families, mixed race or multicultural individuals, and those who are struggling with chronic illness.

Therapy is neither magic nor science, but I believe that therapy has the potential to be magical and transformative. I offer a warm, supportive environment to help individuals explore deep trauma as well as ordinary issues that impact daily life and long-term goals. I strive to inspire creativity through nature, and incorporate creative arts into my practice. My specialties: LGBTQQ issues/identity, working through grief/loss, helping with political wounding, healing survivors of domestic violence/sexual assault, positive aging, body image, building long-term relationships, and life transitions. A veteran career counselor, I've over 7 years of experience providing career counseling and coaching.

My name is Darrin Erb, MSC/LMFT-S, but I go by Darrin. I am a therapist, a college professor, an executive director, a SPED/Educational Specialist certified in ASD, and a pastor, but my greatest titles are that of husband and father. In the world of therapy, there are therapists like doctors and those who are more like surgeons. I am a therapeutic surgeon, meaning that we will go straight toward the dysfunction and replace it with something that works for you.

I love what I do! I have the pleasure of working with clients from five to 105-years-old! Having the opportunity to work with an expansive age range has taught me that at any age: we want to be loved and we want to love, we want to belong, we want to have purpose, we want to experience joy, and we don't want pain. My goal as a therapist, is to help my clients find ways to reduce, restructure, and remove obstacles that cause pain; while building on our individual resources to promote health, happiness and well-being.

Thank you for finding your way here. I believe we all have the innate ability to heal. My goal is to support clients in expanding their awareness of themselves and deepening into here-and-now experiences. When we meet, I will offer you an opportunity to work experientially, as well as to share through talking. Whatever approach we employ, I hope you will leave each session feeling supported and accompanied on your journey. I'm passionate about offering support to parents in the perinatal period (including trying to conceive, fertility treatment, pregnancy & pregnancy challenges/loss, birth, loss, postpartum and early parenthood.

I am an ATR-BC and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and have been licensed for over 5 years and have practiced mostly in California and via telehealth. I have experience working in schools, hospitals, outpatient/ inpatient, residential crisis programs, and fieldwork with many different cultures, seeing adults, children, and families struggling with, mental illness, grief and loss, serious medical/ psychiatric issues, trauma, death/dying, dementia/ Alzheimer’s, personality disorders, and a variety of other issues.

I love discovering the emerging potential of my clients, and supporting their unique personal development and evolution. I'm experienced working with highly sensitive individuals, and those who self-identify as having a history of trauma. Adults who are self-motivated, and those who have or desire a mind-body-spirit practice, are a good fit for the support I provide. I adapt to the needs of children and adults alike. I believe therapy can be a powerful tool to unlock our greater creativity and feelings of interconnectivity and trust, so that my clients can thrive in the web of life.

My clients are passionate, sensitive, often highly creative people searching for a place where their full self can be witnessed, celebrated, and supported. Sometimes this includes mourning for what was not possible or the intensity of previous experiences they were put through and what that has cost them. My clients tend to struggle with a variety of complex issues. They often come from families with a legacy of unprocessed intergenerational trauma, which can take many forms. Ultimately, clients who seek me are looking for a place to try out new ways of being in the world. Ways that will better support their deepest values.

I want to support my clients in feeling whole. This can mean learning how to safely unmask your Autism or ADHD, healing traumas old & new, setting healthy boundaries, strengthening communication with partners, learning new ways to approach challenges without shame, or bringing compassion to chronically ill bodyminds. I specialize in working with neurodivergant people and couples. My young clients enjoy my playful interventions that help them feel confident and proud of being uniquely themselves. My adult clients are relived to tackle challenges without shame and ableism.

When challenges and struggles in life arise, you do not have to walk alone. Whether you have experienced a recent life transition, loss, setback, have struggled with mental health or addiction challenges, or, are seeking support to heal from a recent or childhood trauma, I will be honored to guide you to gain control of your life and reclaim your personal power. I have committed nearly two decades holding a safe and empowered space for adults, children, and adolescents to discover their human potential, heal from trauma, and develop the tools to live a life of vitality and empowerment.

Bilingual, Culturally Sensitive, Trauma-informed, Relational Psychotherapy. I believe that engaging in therapy is an act of courage because change is by definition radical. An important goal of therapy is to connect to your authentic/creative self as a way to make meaning in times of suffering. Together we will explore your personal, family, cultural, and political history to understand the ways in which your experiences shape how you feel in the world. Whether you are struggling with life transitions, finding/keeping good relationships, or trying to integrate different identities, our work can help you find some sense of cohesion.

I strongly believe in the transformative power of personal storytelling. If you're navigating life transitions, grappling with anxiety, sadness, or feeling stuck, I'm here to offer support. Through Creative Arts Therapy and Mindfulness, I provide expressive, experiential avenues for change. My approach centers on fostering connections through self-expression and intuitive methods. By embracing a holistic and creative path to healing, I aim to help you rediscover the spark that fuels inspiration, adaptability, and stability in your life, relationships, and work.

Transforming our inner dialogues and practicing radical self compassion is an important part of healing. Speaking to oneself with gentleness and compassion can be a challenge for many, but we are all worthy of our own kindness. I am here to offer support in your healing journey with yourself. My approach is warm, patient, strengths based, and practical. I offer tools that clients can use to support their personal growth and healing, both during and outside of sessions. This includes learning how to build distress tolerance, learning emotional regulation skills, and practicing strategies for transforming inner thoughts.

Are you sensing a budding awareness in yourself of difficult patterns in your life that you wish to transform and grow through? It would be an honor to support you on your healing journey. I’m a therapist with a trauma-informed, client-centered lens and I utilize various creative modalities to help my clients experience greater insight, self-love, and balance in their lives. Some of the tools I use are art therapy, narrative therapy, meditation, dance movement therapy, as well somatic and sensory interventions. I also have training in SE, ACT, DBT, and CBT and these modalities influence my eclectic therapeutic technique.

I strongly believe that the most healing aspect of therapy is directly related to the safe connection with the therapist. Trainings inform the therapy but only feeling safe and seen will provide the ground for deep exploration and emergence of the new... almost like a birthing process. Client based, my style is warm, compassionate, nonetheless, assertive. Experience and various trainings keep supporting the importance of breath, grounded presence and mindfulness in any therapeutic setting and healing/life process. Therefore, those are central to my work. My sessions combines several psychotherapy approaches together with various somatic practices such as bioenergetics, movement, mindfulness & trauma work.

I consider myself to be a neurospicy therapist, who is authentic and direct. My style is anchored in cognitive science, attachment theory, mindfulness, social justice, parts work, and somatic psychology. I value science equally with the domain of intuition and art, and I consider myself an especially huge nerd with evolutionary psychology. I'm queer and LGBTQIA+ aligned, and I'm fluent in polyamory and kink relationship dynamics.