I work with clients both new to and seasoned in therapy. I offer somatic based, trauma-informed care, am committed to culturally responsive therapy, and provide inclusive and affirming care for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ clients.

With a strong understanding of how anxiety, depression, and trauma disconnect us from ourselves and dampen our ability to experience joy, I work with clients on reconnecting to and caring for their emotional selves.

In a safe and contained space, I help couples and families cultivate communication, attunement, respect, harmony, and intimacy in their relationships.

My Approach

At every moment, all of us are doing our best! Through cultivating an environment of self-compassion and freedom from judgment (which only keeps us stuck), I help clients get to truly know and care for themselves. Often shame, guilt, and regret block our ability to turn inward and self-reflect.

By learning how to soften and let go of these unhelpful judgements, clients begin to see what is driving their emotions and behaviors. They develop an understanding of how learned behaviors or past, unresolved pains cause them to react in defensive patterns that often either hurt themselves or others.

In a safe, loving, tender space, clients begin to lower their defenses and regain choice in how they respond. With a greater sense of empowerment towards creating the life they desire, clients experience a truer sense of safety, less exhaustion, a calmer nervous system, more joy, and improved relationships.

As the mind and body are one system, somatic work is naturally incorporated into treatment. Gripping in the mind leads to gripping in the body and vice-versa. At its core, healing is about letting go.

I whole-heartedly believe that we have an infinite potential to heal and everyone deserves to not only experience relief from pain, but to truly feel good.

Services

Anxiety

  • Sleep disturbances

  • Nervous system dysfunction

  • Overachieving, perfectionism, planning 

  • Panic disorders

  • Constant chatter in the mind

  • Dissociation

Depression

  • Loss and grief

  • Emotional numbness

  • Disconnection

  • Suicidal ideation

  • Self-harm

Trauma (ancestral, childhood, acute, medical)

  • Disconnect of the mind from the body

  • Storing trauma in the body

  • Breaking family patterns

  • Attachment wounds

  • Hypervigilance 

  • Shame and guilt

  • Powerlessness, helplessness, and hopelessness

  • Self-limiting beliefs

Mind-body-spirit

  • Alignment

  • Forgiveness

  • Self-love

Teens 

  • Academic anxiety

  • Peer relationships

  • Parent conflict

  • Self-esteem and self-worth

  • Bullying

  • Substance use and misuse

  • Disordered eating

  • Self-harm and suicidal ideation

Parenting support

  • Understanding child development and psychology

  • Parent-child communication

  • Self-care and stress management

  • Individuation of teens

  • Shifting unhelpful family patterns

  • Repairing relationships

  • Exploring and setting family intentions 

Couples

  • Attachment styles

  • Communication

  • Power dynamics

  • Attunement

  • Intimacy

Anxiety

Where fear is, there is your task.
- Carl Jung

We live in a fear-driven society in which worry often creates incessant chatter in the mind, impacting our ability to eat nutritiously, sleep deeply, and enjoy life. Anxiety stems from the fear of anticipated suffering. In an attempt to avoid future suffering, the mind goes to work, trying to create safety through attempting to control our environment, our response to the environment, and our future; but deep down, we know that this is not possible, causing the mind to continue its futile task of worrying. Genuine feelings of safety come from processing past suffering and recognizing the truth, which is that we are not fragile and that we can lovingly care for ourselves in times of pain. As the belief that we must control decreases, the mind quiets and we can achieve freedom from the incessant worry.

Depression

My friend...care for your psyche...know thyself, for once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for ourselves.
- Socrates

Depression has many different looks beyond what is typically portrayed in popular media. Depression results from pushing down or suppressing emotions, typically unpleasant ones. The sadness, grief, disappointment, shame, and other hard-to-feel emotions lodge themselves into the body. As more and more suppression occurs, the storage of unpleasant emotions builds, the feeling of heaviness sets in, and our ability to truly experience joy and pleasure erodes. These stuck emotions can be welcomed back to the surface so that they can be fully felt and freed from the body and psyche. As we free stuck emotions and energies, we feel lighter, more joyful, and more energetic.

Trauma

The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate.
- Carl Jung

I view traumas as unhealed wounds of all sizes. Traumas disconnect the mind from the body and create a false-sense of ourselves, those around us, and our world. Our lives become limited by these false beliefs and the energy of the past traumas drives us. Safety is sought, the nervous system remains on alert, and our heart becomes less accessible. We can feel chronically unlucky or fated for misery. With great tenderness, these wounds can heal, and we can discover what we and the world are truly like when we are no longer bound by our trauma. Rather than being attached to feelings such as helplessness, powerlessness, fragility, and worthlessness, we can cultivate joy, peace, and happiness.

The longest journey most of us have to take is from the head to the heart.
- Native American (Sioux) proverb

Dominican University
MS Counseling Psychology

Stanford University
BS & MS Computer Science

Member of California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT)

My therapeutic work is greatly influenced by my own physical and emotional healing. One of my most valued teachers once expressed that there is a difference between thinking one knows and knowing. Engaging in my own deep, therapeutic work has transformed my counseling psychology studies into a deeper understanding of the healing process. I have learned that the body and psyche are one system, and that humans are not divisible in the ways modern science would have us believe. 

I have worked as a school-based therapist in elementary and high schools, supporting students and their parents, and volunteered on the suicide prevention hotline for several years.

Prior to becoming a therapist, I was a researcher in a field that harnesses the power of computing to tackle biological and medical problems. I am a sports fan, primarily soccer and baseball, love live music and playing games, adore my small family, and feel incredibly fortunate to live in an area where the healing power of such beautiful land surrounds us.

I believe that we have an infinite capacity to heal and that we feel well when we are aligned in mind, body, and spirit.

Reach out to see if I can be of help to you.