Therapists in Richmond, CA

Hi, I’m Alli, a trauma-informed relational therapist, specialized in working with individuals, couples, parents, parent-child, and siblings. You may be seeking effective communication and conflict management in your relationships. You desire to build trust and connection, enhance your relational intelligence, and cultivate a deeper understanding of yourself and others. Perhaps you're navigating challenging moods such as anxiety, depression and loneliness, or you're dealing with recurring problems that keep you feeling stuck. You recognize these experiences are deeply intertwined with the quality of your relationships and life.

You may be feeling anxious, struggling with sleep, and are desiring healthier and more connected relationships. Deep down there is another part of you that desires more fulfillment, less anxiety, and inner confidence. I can help you. I successfully support my clients in developing new inner resources to have greater relationship success and a holistic health toolbox to not just survive but instead to thrive. My expertise includes working with highly sensitive adults, couples, and families.

Becoming the adults and/or partners we want to be is often a transformational and evolutionary process. I support couples with building security, & women and men who are eager to gain deeper self-understanding and reparent themselves, who want to heal from wounds of past relationships and their upbringing, and ultimately live more free. I often work with spiritually inclined folks who are in the self-discovery process and offer existential support, exploring our role in the web of existence and the meaning of being here. I also support folks in the healing process with chronic illness, trauma, binge eating, anxiety, & grief.

We all need to be seen & witnessed. Whatever it is that feels too hard—be it exploring identity, navigating attachment wounds, combating intrusive thoughts, or processing the collective grief in the world—one of the greatest gifts you can give to yourself is dedicated time just for you & your needs. I would be honored to walk with you on your path. For me, therapy is relational. The human on the other side of the room (or screen) should feel like precisely that: a human! Together, we will create a container in which you can authentically examine your relationships with others as well as the pivotal relationship to self.

Licensed in CA and OR. A comfortable alliance with a skilled therapist can help you to bring greater awareness and agency to choices you make. Perhaps fulfillment comes from having looked into yourself with curiosity, compassion and support. Bringing yourself forward in your own way and expressing yourself can be challenging in many ways... cultural, political and social inequities, childhood injuries, confusing relationships, difficulties that began with your ancestors, stressful current circumstances. Sometimes being present in yourself as well as in the world with compassion is the most poignant challenge of all.

I create an experience tailored to your individualized needs and goals. Instead of sticking to a template, we’ll identify how to ensure you feel most comfortable expressing yourself. Therapy can deepen your awareness—which could mean welcoming back parts that you feel disconnected from, discovering new thoughts or ideas, or working with feelings that don’t seem to fit easily in your day-to-day life. As a result, you’ll start to better understand the unique factors that influence your relationships and behaviors: your strengths, values, intuition, and emotions. With new perspectives, you can prepare to live with greater authenticity.

Through therapy, we can author and re-author life stories and personal mythologies in order to bring self-supporting realities into existence. I work collaboratively with clients, cultivating existing strengths and internal resources in order to foster relationships and life experiences that contribute to clients' recovery and wellbeing. When invited, and with respect, I’m honored to explore what makes clients who they are, and to support who they want to become.

You feel isolated, misunderstood...lonely. You’ve been told you’re “too much,” “too sensitive,” or “intense.” You feel frozen in profound suffering. You feel that no one has seen the real you and have a sense that there are parts of yourself that maybe you haven’t seen. Hiding yourself has become unbearable, but you don’t know where to start or who to go to for help making sense of your complex inner world and experiences. We can be deeply wounded in relationships, past and current, but it is also in relationships that we find healing.

I offer my clients specific tools to help them navigate difficult situations, reduce anxious thinking, manage depression, cope with trauma-related symptoms, set boundaries in relationships, and build confidence in themselves. I specialize in working with professionals in their 20’s and 30’s and enjoy helping them find a healthy balance between work, family/friends, and themselves. I have extensive experience teaching practical skills in these areas to best meet my clients' specific needs. I additionally specialize in helping people navigate relational trauma and work with the parts themselves that may be stuck in the past.

Bianca Aarons is a San Francisco based Couples Therapist and Individual Therapist who works in an integrative way, incorporating a psychoanalytic, relational, and somatic styles of working. Bianca treats couples who struggle with communication, survivors of sexual abuse, and others to help people find their voice, to feel empowered, and to access healthy anger and boundaries. Bianca also works with people who struggle within relationships because of anxiety and past family issues which may have let to lower self esteem and perfectionism. She works in a direct and honest way while also being very compassionate and empathetic.

Please note: emailing me via Psychology Today is preferred to calling, thank you! :) I know it's exhausting to live in a world that asks us to mask our true identities, needs, and the most unique and beautiful parts of ourselves. We all deserve to have a safe space where we can explore the masks that we wear and the selves beneath them. I have lived experience with neurodivergence, dissociation, polyamory, and am queer and nonbinary, so I understand how valuable it is to have a therapist who understands intersectional experiences and can provide a space for non-judgmental authenticity in healing.

Change is the one constant in life - but how do we adapt or make sense of it? My approach is relational and warm, with a focus on holding an expansive container for you to explore the depth of your feelings and what they mean to you. I integrate mindfulness based breathing practices, somatic practices, Eastern/Western philosophy, a psychodynamic (how the past impacts the present) lens, and the belief that we're all imperfect humans trying to figure out this messy endeavor of being alive. I welcome all the parts that make up who you are and the wisdom they have to share. I want to support you in living an aligned life.

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!