Whether you are looking to learn new skills, work out a solution to a problem, improve your relationships or develop insight into patterns in your life, here are a few ways I can help:
Individual Therapy
Therapy is geared specifically to you, your unique experience, and story.
I hold a warm space for you to share what you’re going through, feel seen, heard, and understood.
I will help you safely explore that which is and is not working to foster healing and growth.
Using a mindful approach, I can guide you to approach your experience with curiosity, openness, and compassion.
Together, we will discover the unhelpful patterns keeping you stuck, and learn effective strategies to help you develop resilience, find relief, and feel more at ease in your life.
Issues I have experience with:
Depression, Anxiety & Stress
Low Self-Esteem, Shame, Self-Criticism
Trauma / PTSD
Relationship Issues
Life Transitions
Illness, Grief, & Loss
Spiritual or Existential Issues & Personal Growth
Sexual & Gender Identity
Marginalization & Minority Stress
Immigration & Cultural Conflict
Family Conflict
Relationship Counseling
I work with relationships of all stages to develop communication skills, build more intimacy, and navigate shifts and conflicts.
You can learn to increase awareness of each other’s needs, and establish more helpful boundaries.
By offering an objective nonjudgemental perspective, I can help you understand what is and is not working, and explore how to create the relationship you want with your partner.
I am sex-positive, poly-friendly and kink affirming. Couples and families of all structures and orientations are warmly welcomed!
Issues I work with, include:
Building Communication Tools
Processing Infidelity
Navigating Conflicts & Disagreements
Deepening Intimacy
Consciously Ending Relationships
Co-Parenting Post-Divorce
Premarital Counseling
Opening Up, Polyamory and Non-Monogamy
Teen Counseling
Being a teenager can be tough! These in-between years of not being a “kid” but neither being a “full-fledged adult” can bring about a lot of anxiety, worry and confusion for both adolescents and parents.
Teens often deal with many stressors at home, in school and in their social life, and can benefit from a safe space to be themselves, and to learn coping skills to deal with life’s challenges.
From a neurobiological standpoint, this is a sensitive time of increased brain growth and hormonal changes. Because of the tendency towards dysregulation, secure relationships with a trusted adult is critical for healthy adolescent development.
I work with Bay Area teens individually, with parents separately, or with the whole family together to help you navigate the challenges of this developmental period.
I draw upon my experience working at an agency specifically for adolescents and their families, and I work with teens struggling with many challenging issues, including:
Anxiety & Depression
Self-Harm
Low Self-Esteem
Social-Anxiety
Body-Image Issues
Bullying
Family Conflict & Communication Issues
Academic Stress
LGBTQ-Related Issues
Mindfulness & Self-Compassion Group
Learn transformative skills to better handle difficult emotions, soften the inner critic, and cultivate a calmer and kinder mind.
Each session consists of short talks, experiential exercises, group discussion and home practice.
This group is helpful for adults who:
Struggle with low self-esteem, shame, self-criticism, and/or self-hatred
Want to decrease stress, develop better coping skills and enhance emotional resilience
Feel isolated in their struggles and want to connect with others in a supportive setting.
In-person groups are held in Oakland and/or Berkeley.
Queer Counseling
I provide queer and gender affirmative therapy to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) individuals & couples in the East Bay Area, Oakland, and Berkeley.
In a safe and affirming space I collaborate with you on goals related to:
Discrimination, Guilt, Shame & Internalized Oppression.
Queer Parenting, Fertility Treatment, and Family Planning
Coming Out
Relationship Challenges
Premarital Counseling
Family Conflict/ Rejection
Rejection From Religious Communities, Conversion Therapy Trauma, Spiritual Growth
Developing more security in poly/open relationships!
Cultural conflict, including Middle Eastern, first and second generation immigrant family dynamics
And other issues you might be facing not directly related to being LGBTQ+
As a queer-identified therapist, I can understand the harmful impact social oppression and discrimination can have on you, and I can also appreciate the ways you have learned to survive and thrive in this world.
I also facilitate queer process therapy groups where you can learn powerful tools to build resilience, develop greater self-acceptance, and connect with others on similar journeys.
Online Counseling
I offer online therapy via secure video sessions to clients anywhere in California. You can access therapy from the comfort of your home or wherever is convenient for you. This can be a great option for people who have trouble with mobility, difficulty with transportation or who feel more comfortable doing therapy in their own space.
Virtual therapy (also known as teletherapy) is structured like a typical 50-min therapy session, with the exception of being virtual instead of in-person. Sessions will be tailored to your particular goals and issues.
Online therapy is limited to residents of California and Oregon.
Somatic Therapy, Brainspotting & Trauma
“To capitalize on the body in therapy calls for a shift in emphasis from conversation to mindful exploration; from a sole focus on emotions and thoughts to the inclusion of body sensation, posture, and movements; from discussing new possibilities to experimenting with new actions.”
—Pat Ogden, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
What is Somatic Therapy?
Most of us know our story well. We’ve analyzed, processed and unpacked the details countless times with anybody that will listen, and sometimes it can feel like we’re stuck in the same loop, not getting anywhere. Somatic therapy allows us to try something different; rather than “talking about” the same story, the same ol’ way, we shift to being with our internal experience as it is happening right now.
Think of the difference between snorkeling, where you’re swimming on the surface looking down at all the interesting, scary or bizarre things below, versus scuba diving all the way down to the deep ocean bed to check out what’s happening yourself! Somatic therapy invites you into a much deeper experiential and healing process.
Somatic therapy is based on the notion that past experiences are stored in our body, and re-enacted in our posture, movement, gestures, breathing patterns and bodily sensations. We use mindfulness to slow down and work with these elements of our experience to eventually unlock these maladaptive stored memories. This process is characterized by curiosity, openness, and the capacity to turn towards our difficult feelings and sensations in order to facilitate greater self-awareness and nervous system regulation, and to discover new ways of moving through the world.
“Healing asks that you turn toward your past to find relief from the weight of trauma. As a result, you become less defined by your history and have greater choice about your future.”
— Arielle Schwartz, PhD
What is Brainspotting?
Brainspotting is a Mind-Body therapy approach that provides rapid-pace healing by processing and releasing traumatic memories, maladaptive beliefs and emotional pain stored in the deeper regions of the brain, in a way that talk therapy can’t access alone.
The brainspot is located by finding an eye position where the emotion is most strongly felt, which is related to the region of the brain and nervous system where the memory is stored. This approach can help decrease symptoms of depression, anxiety, and treat a wide range of issues, particularly those that have been caused by trauma. Some issues treated by Brainspotting including, childhood neglect, abuse, low self-esteem, physical pain, unhealthy relationship patterns, performance anxiety and much more.
Somatic therapy and Brainspotting are easily integrated with other therapeutic techniques. If you’re curious to give it a try, get in touch to find out more.
Infertility and Queer Conception Therapy: Supporting Clients on Their Parenthood Journeys
I work with individuals and couples embarking on their fertility and family building journeys, and offer support during this unique and sometimes challenging time.
Not all fertility and family building paths are straightforward or easy. I offer coping strategies, and a safe space to explore your emotional experiences, and cultivate resilience in this process. I can help you navigate the broad array of family-building options, provide you with resources, and empower you to make informed decisions aligned with your goals.
My work includes supporting clients struggling with infertility, miscarriages, difficulty getting pregnant as well as those grieving the loss of what they hoped and wished for. These situations can create a high level of stress, emotional and physical and financial burdens, and can also strain our relationships. Therapy can offer extra support to cope with the stress of infertility, and a space to process your experience and not feel alone.
Common Subjects Discussed During Queer Conception, Parenting and Infertility Counseling:
Navigating the range of fertility treatments and family building options including IUI and IVF, as well as adoption, fostering, surrogacy and co-parenting arrangements.
Improving interpersonal communication skills with our partners
Grieving the loss of miscarriage or childbirth
Exploring donor egg/sperm choices and questions involved in non-genetic family building
Coparenting beyond traditional relationship structures (e.g. single parenting, poly families and parenting with more than two parents)
Raising kids in communities that are hostile or unsupportive to LGBTQ families.
Trans clients exploring reproductive therapy
Please reach out if you’d like to discuss your situation to find out more about how I can support you!