Therapists in Philadelphia, PA

Choosing to begin psychotherapy can start with a feeling that there is more for you to discover, a greater balance to achieve, or a challenge to work through. In the safe accepting space of therapy, a healing process can evolve at a pace that is supportive and comfortable for you. I encourage people to approach their inner work with gentleness, perseverance, courage and compassion. I offer psychodynamic, mindful, cognitive and trauma-informed care to individuals, pairs and groups, including independent teens (only). I value and practice a thoughtful, culturally aware, and collaborative approach to our work.

In my clinical work I focus on helping clients develop a more compassionate and complete understanding of themselves. If you're experiencing anxiety or depression—particularly symptoms like intrusive thoughts, OCD, or the lingering effects of past trauma or abuse—it is possible to find relief through counseling. I'd like to help you start to make sense of things.

"The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown" (Carl Jung). There are times in our life's journey where the path becomes difficult to traverse: depression, anxiety, and problems in our relationships can obstruct the view. Struggles with our circumstances, managing anger, coping with workplace stress, and existential questions are common challenges we face in life. I welcome the opportunity to journey along aside you in these challenges and together discover a richness that has been waiting to be revealed.

Do you feel as though the intensity of your emotions overwhelm you? Maybe you're often anxious throughout the day? Are you incredibly aware of the "why" behind your thoughts and actions, yet still haven't successfully created lasting change? Or, maybe you're doing "all the right things," but are wondering why you still feel so numb? If any of these experiences resonated with you, you're not alone. I am specially trained to support anxiety, grief, trauma and relationship stress. Together we are a team. Using evidence-based, cognitive-behavioral therapies and mind-body tools, you can heal, change and create the life you desire.

I work most often with people who have been pushed to the margins, including trans, non-binary and queer people, autistic and other neurodivergent people, and people who have survived traumatic events and relationships. I enjoy working with organizers, activists, and artists. I tend to be a good fit for clients experiencing shame, despair, isolation and existential dread. As a trans woman myself, I have experienced both the harms of misguided psychotherapy and the healing that can come from a co-created and trusting therapeutic relationship.

I serve a diverse clientele and work really well with creatives, empaths, entrepreneurs, and the LGBTQ+ community. I typically treat anxiety, depression, trauma, and substance use, and support clients with behavior change, life stage + transitions, identity + sexuality, relationships, and career issues. I am trauma-informed, apply queer, feminist, anti-oppressive, and body/sex-positive lenses, and incorporate harm reduction principles. I also offer clinical supervision.

Navigating the complexities of the human experience can be hard and confusing. Despite our best efforts to construct a life aligned with our dreams and aspirations, we often find ourselves confronted by waves of pain, anxiety, grief, trauma, depression, stress, and guilt. In the midst of these struggles, it's natural to question ourselves and our behaviors, wondering, “What's wrong with me?” We feel exhausted as we desperately try to change ourselves, seeking any form of relief from the relentless tide of inner turmoil, yet it seems that nothing we do brings the desired results.

I have been working as a psychoanalyst for almost twenty years and understand how challenging it can be to seek help at times. However, as we all need assistance at various moments in our lives, embarking on psychotherapy is an important step. Working with psychoanalysis can help you better understand the past experiences that shaped your character, as well as your future, desires, goals you aspire to achieve and the fears and obstacles you encounter. I can listen to patients in English, Portuguese (my native language), and Spanish. I have experience with student's mental health, depression, anxiety, psychosis and another diagnosis.

I work for The Center For Growth, treating everything from mental health to sex and relationship issues. I can help you manage thing like anxiety and depression as we explore and understand complex emotions in a safe space and find healthy and effective ways to express and release those feelings. We can immerse ourselves in exploration of your past as we make connections and gain understanding of how old patterns show up for you today. Or we can focus on the here and now, identifying what behaviors and thoughts are no longer serving you so you can create new goals that support your growth, in whatever way feels right to you.

Change and loss can be overwhelming, but your grief journey doesn’t have to be. If you’re grieving the death of a loved one or facing another kind of loss, chances are you’ve tried to put these difficult experiences behind you. Yet despite your best efforts, you’re still feeling lonely and misunderstood, guilty or even resentful that it’s taking so long to move on. The good news? You don’t have to walk this path alone. When you work with me, you'll receive compassionate attention and practical guidance. We'll explore what may be holding you back, and you’ll learn and implement new strategies to support your healing and growth.

You made it here! Getting to the point where you finally make a connection and start feeling some relief from your burdens, it's a lot. If you schedule with me, you will find that I'm an open, honest person who creates a warm, safe space for you to explore anything and everything that brought you here. I help people untangle their suffering from their daily lives.

Take a moment and visualize your life as a garden, influenced by various individuals and experiences that have shaped its landscape. You may notice aspects of your garden that no longer align with your desires—a tangle of vines choking your flowers or plants that no longer serve you. Maybe you have yearning to create a garden that truly reflects who you are and are unsure of what you want to grow. Some sections of your garden are thriving and others aren't. Whether there is that type of knowing or its processing an adverse event(s), you have an awareness that your "garden" isn't as full as you want it to be.

Many of my patients are people with multicultural/multiracial families and relationships, immigrants or the adult children of immigrants, people of Asian descent, artists, graduate students & post-doctoral clinicians, and people who have experienced shifts in class and/or religious identity who are looking to more deeply understand how their experience of depression, anxiety, or trauma is tied to these transgenerational and cross-cultural forces.

Have you ever found yourself wondering: why does this keep happening? Perhaps your relationships all tend to end the same or your friendships never seem as close as you thought they were. Or no matter what you do you can't seem to shake this feeling of worry or sadness. I am dedicated to helping you in understanding your depression, anxiety, adult ADHD, relationship distress/sexual difficulties, gender identity issues, & parent-child relationships (just to name a few) and assisting you in making the changes to improve.

I enjoy helping clients who want to explore themselves and work towards being more accepting and confident in who they truly are. If you want to gain a broader perspective in how you are approaching your relationships, both personal and professional, I'd love to help you. Growth and change are challenging, and can also be fun and exciting. In our work we'll practice being more aware of what is really there for you in the area(s) you're working on. It might be that devloping a new skillset in your relationship will help it grow, or that you need help ending a relationship and starting a new one.

Most of my clients have some form of anxiety or depression. Often this is related to a difficulty with their family, partner(s) or colleagues. They want to feel secure and strong in the world and have better relationships. They are looking for meaning, relief, and self awareness. I see a lot of clients who need help getting over a breakup or navigating ENM. I view my clients as whole and complex beings who deserve to get to the root of their issues instead of treating symptoms one by one.

Life can be really hard. Sometimes you need help to move through the tougher times. You are the expert on your life and with my experience and expertise we form a strong, workng relationship. I work and teach from an integrative perspective incorporating mindfulness with the traditional therapeutic approaches Cognitive Behavioral and Humanistic. I believe that healing, growth and change are best supported by raising our awareness around our thoughts, actions, feelings and our physical selves. I advocate movement, internal work and meditative practice when appropriate.

Clients who will benefit more from working with me are complex, sensitive persons and couples going through some kind of life transition, or some relational or existential crisis, who want to understand themselves better, integrate the many sides of their identity, "own" their experiences, and reflect about their life course and ways of being and relating. Also persons willing to heal from trauma, to build resiliency and unleash post-traumatic growth. I have lived in Europe, Africa and USA, and have developed an expertise in immigration, acculturation, and international and transnational identities and experiences.

We are constantly transitioning and struggling with life experiences and relationships. Whether it is frustrations due to family or work interactions, or the grief and sadness that follows the death of a loved one, day to day life can be difficult to manage. When we learn how to manage our emotions, discuss what is making us uncomfortable, and work through a major life change, we can make the day to day more manageable. You are not alone in your struggles, and I hope to assist in your journey to making your life less stressful and more fulfilling. Please visit my website, linked above, for more information and scheduling.