Therapists in San Francisco, CA

In the therapy session, I work to create a safe place to be our true, human selves—where both our worst and best qualities will in time be revealed. I work in the here-and-now: exploring your present concerns and goals more than your past history. I know that empathy promotes healing and ask for feedback to be sure my clients feel understood. I provide resources, tools and skills clients can use between sessions. I also work to help people learn self-compassion (see www.self-compassion.org), since that ability is necessary to heal and grow.

Feeling like you have to hide parts of yourself at work, or with your romantic partner or family? These pressures can make us lose touch with who we are and what makes us feel alive. Are you feeling lonely or not good enough, and longing to be fully accepted? Together, we can explore what matters most to you, so you can move towards the life you want. I can support you in transforming patterns that make you feel stuck or overwhelmed. I offer Internal Family Systems, Emotionally Focused Therapy, Somatic Therapy, Hypnotherapy, and Brainspotting, which are all proven approaches for healing trauma and reducing anxiety and depression.

Are you asking, How can I find love? or, What is missing in my relationships? Are you stuck in complaining and blaming, or avoiding and withholding? Are you noticing your relationship struggles make you feel lonelier rather than more open to each other? I provide an environment of safety where you may explore how you are stuck and how your persistent conflicts spoil your potential for intimacy. Tracking the repetitive patterns of communication, and the stories which confirm your most negative beliefs, I will strengthen your awareness to the influences that affect whether you keep repeating old patterns or open to real change.

I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist with a specialty in the treatment of marital issues (couples counseling), ADHD, trauma, gaming addiction, depression, anxiety, OCD, and career stress.

Couples therapy lights me up! Not feeling heard, understood, valued or supported? Repetitive shaming & blaming? Withdrawing? Needing help? Utilizing evidence-based EFT & powerful tools from PACT, NVC & IFS,I help couples create a secure bond & safe haven with each other. You'll learn to trust, support, hear & "be there" for each other. Develop critical self-awareness, accountabiity & WE instead of just ME mentality. Turn towards each other instead of away with vulnerability, authenticity, compassion & attunement. Discover attachment styles, the brain & nervous system, survival parts & trauma that may be hurting your relationship.

I work with people who are open to exploring why they sometimes react in ways that may get in the way of healthy relationships, and are motivated to gain insight into the many aspects of their personalities, in efforts to discover their authentic selves.

In addition to working extensively with anxiety issues, I specialize in helping clients improve their relationships with their partners/spouses. I wholeheartedly welcome both straight and LGBT clients into my practice. I often tell clients that everything makes perfect sense (ie. the problems they share and how they react), and all we need to do is find the right pieces of the puzzle to help them understand. It is from this understanding that relief and solutions arise. By truly understanding what anxiety is and isn't, we learn how to navigate it so it doesn't control our lives.

Therapy with me is casual and warm, while providing you a space for direct guidance and embodied meditation practices to help you on your journey. I specialize in relationships and intimacy and support to improve communication, work through anxiety, and create a fulfilling life. I have training in both holistic East-West Psychotherapy as well as relationship and embodiment-focused life coaching. I have offices San Francisco and Oakland, CA. This holistic, embodiment-oriented psychotherapy offers individuals and couples concrete skills to tackle anxiety, depression, and relationship challenges in a safe and inviting space.

The heart and emphasis of my work is to help you know and trust your deepest feelings and to live an emotionally authentic life. When you become more intimate and present with yourself you become more intimate and authentic with others. As you know yourself better, you'll discover how certain emotions, behaviors and beliefs have shaped your life and relationships and you'll become empowered to make many important changes. For over 20 years, I've helped couples and individuals develop increased self-trust and self-awareness, greater life purpose and more conscious, loving and intimate relationships.

Dear fellow traveler, do you want to find calm amidst anxiety and stress, claim inner peace from past wounds, rekindle love and affection with your partner(s), seek peace with food, discover pleasure with your body, or get more clarity and acceptance about who you are? As a seasoned trauma/ relationship/ sex specialist, I help highly motivated humans like you to create the life you've been waiting for. Together, we navigate the challenges you face, not only transforming your life, but also breaking generational cycles, and fostering healing for future generations (if you choose to have them).

I welcome those who find themselves in the unknown spaces of their lives, when transitions or change are calling them to shed what no longer serves them, and become more of who they truly are. I sit with you as a collaborative ally in the discovery of your own unique inner voice. While we may seek to understand old limiting beliefs, our deeper journey is toward uncovering the part of you that naturally moves towards its greatest wholeness and aliveness. Together we find the resources you already have to support your unfolding process.

"Look within. All you need, you have. Use it. Behave as best you know; do what you think you should. Don't be afraid of mistakes; you can always correct them; only intentions matter. The shape things take is not within your power; the motives of your actions are." (Nisargadata 1973, p.365)

Let go, let in, and embrace - I believe these three steps can be the hardest, yet, with compassion, they can be the most life-giving and beautiful approaches to human life. It has always been my greatest pleasure to assist clients in the process of letting go, letting in, and embracing life more intimately. Clients I work with include individuals seeking to transform impacts of trauma or loss, relieve burden associated with hoarding or clutterring, learn more about self-love and love for and with others.

Do you keep getting hurt in relationships? Keep attracting the same toxic, unavailable partners that make you doubt yourself & leave you feeling anxious & depressed? If you grew up with family dysfunction, neglect, abuse, addicted, or mentally ill parents- adult relationships can be hard! Sometimes what you're drawn to isn't good for you. You're tired of feeling stuck in the same painful patterns. You're ready to finally heal. Ready to stop feeling hurt, damaged, & broken and start feeling loved and connected. Let's address the real impact of your past trauma on your relationships and take practical steps to free you from your past!

Seeing you leave my office feeling better and more comfortable in your skin makes my day. Hearing that your life has changed for the better makes my year. I pledge that when you come to me you will find my heart open to you no matter how you have suffered, no matter what you look like, no matter where you come from and no matter how you live your life. My goal is to look at those things you give me permission to look at and to work with you to meet your wants and needs. .

I provide contemporary psychoanalytic psychotherapy for people who are struggling with anxiety, depression, and relationship issues, especially in immigrant and cross-cultural families with a history of complex trauma. I believe that our symptoms make sense in the context of our early experiences, family histories, and systems we live in. We learn resilience and survival strategies in difficult situations that may not be sustainable for us now. Therapy has lasting results when it starts with an exploration of who you are as a whole person, not just the symptoms you are experiencing right now. ​

Hello and welcome to your psychotherapy journey. I am here to join you as you weather life's storms. Whether it's trauma, family tensions, illness, depression, anxiety, relationship issues, loneliness, work stress, or just plain existential dread - I can support you on your healing path. I bring a breadth of experience to my sessions, including a history of therapeutic work with teens, families, the LGBTQIA community, folks with chronic pain and illnesses, college students, and elderly adults.

Are you ready to up-level your self understanding? Wow, navigating life and relationships can get confusing and overwhelming so quickly! It is my pleasure to help turn the tensions and pain you're experiencing into opportunities for growth and expansion. If you're ready to make changes and welcome in new ways of being, now is the time. I work with individuals, couples, and groups. We will find the nourishment within the pain while not losing track of what feels good...laughter is not uncommon in my office. If you are interested in working in a group, check out IRL Men below.

Start seeing challenges as opportunities to get your needs met and improve your relationship! I’m Dr. Sean Robertson, creator of RDP. I work as an online Couples Counselor and Intimacy Coach. I know relationships can be hard, even though they’re also one of the most fulfilling parts of our life. In my couples counseling I create an empathic space for learning and deep connection, while also being diligent about ensuring that clients implement the tools I teach. My methods are based in behavioral psychology, Gottman Method, and attachment psychology.