Do you find yourself getting caught up in unhealthy behavior patterns that you just can't get out of no matter how hard you try? Do you get weighed down by depression or overcome with anxiety? Do you keep trying to figure out your emotional struggles on your own, but realize that things really aren't getting any better? I've been in private practice for 25+ years helping people deal with a wide variety of emotional and behavioral issues. Talking about what is going on with someone you trust really can be helpful. I work to create a sensitive, supportive and non-judgmental environment that can help give you relief from painful or embarrassing feelings or problematic behaviors. Giving yourself this opportunity to learn, grow, and heal can allow you to better manage life's challenges and to truly live your life with deeper joy and satisfaction.

Difficult feelings can be a gateway for personal growth. I work with many individuals struggling with depression and anxiety, trauma, problems in relationships, stress management, and life transitions. My approach is to help you explore those difficult thoughts, feelings, and past experiences which prevent you from being comfortable with who you would like to be, what you want in your life, and the kinds of relationships that you want to have with others. I offer a collaborative, in-depth approach to psychotherapy that promotes meaningful change in character, felt experience, and behavior. By learning how to observe and engage with parts of ourselves, we can grow towards greater wholeness and satisfaction with our lives. Developing a relationship with our suffering and uncertainties can actually be in service of realizing our goals. Therapy can be focused and together, we will identify potential areas of growth for you as well as ways to measure your progress. My style is a blend of compassionate, kind, direct and engaging.

My name is Danielle, and I graduated with my Bachelor’s in Psychology in May 2015 and my Master of Social Work in November 2020. I became licensed as a clinical social worker in 2022, and I have worked in the behavioral health field for ten years. Throughout the course of my career, I have worked with individuals of all ages who were experiencing anything from posttraumatic stress (PTSD) to substance abuse to psychosis to depression to mood conditions, a combination of these, and more. I am a naturally empathetic and compassionate person who believes everyone can benefit from nonjudgmental support and guidance. I have always had a passion for helping others, and feel that the behavioral health field chose me as much as I chose it. I am committed to being a positive support for individuals in need and guiding them towards lasting behavioral change and healing that will enhance the quality of their lives. I founded Emerge Healing Center because our community needs as many safe spaces as possible to empower healing. Our survival behaviors and defense mechanisms often become how we identify, but I see you. I see the authentic you waiting to emerge. My practice is guided by a holistic and person-centered approach, with the use of motivational interviewing, trauma-focused techniques, cognitive behavioral and dialectical behavioral interventions, and eye movement desensitization reprocessing therapy (EMDR). I am certified in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and trained in EMDR.

Focused and Personalized Shift your focus from surviving to creating. Change happens when we embrace the possibilities rather than the limits. We will focus on the specific changes that you want to see in your life and we will check in during every session to make sure that we are on track to meet your goals. You are unique and so is your path forward. Your therapy will be designed for your particular needs. Mindfulness and Neuroscience If you are caught in a negative story, I offer practices that engage the mind and body such as mindfulness, Brainspotting, EMDR and EFT. When we are stressed, we don’t think as clearly and can fall into habits of negative thoughts and emotions. Those habits leave a neurological imprint in the body. Changing your mind is only half of the solution. You have to retrain your nervous system as well and mindbody practices speed that process along. Brief and Effective Many people are concerned that change is only possible after years of weekly therapy. It doesn't have to be that way. "Power therapies" like EMDR and EFT accelerate change by directly addressing the habits of thought and emotion that get in your way. Expect to see lasting results in weeks and months. My priority is to help you create the change you want at the pace and cadence that works for you. During my 28 years of expertise, I have helped people to transform their lives while focusing on several areas: 1. Trauma A part of you may be stuck in a terrible moment from the past. Here is what your heart needs to know: It’s over. You survived. You are stronger than you think. Let’s get you into the present moment where you are safe and capable and whole. 2. Anxiety and Panic Attacks Anxiety doesn’t exist in the present. Anxiety wants you to live in the regrets of the past and the imagined disasters of the future. If you have been experiencing anxiety or panic attacks for a while, your nervous system may actually be habituated to the hormones of stress. Have you noticed that every time you start to relax, anxiety looks for something to worry about? There is good news. You can retrain your nervous system and break this habit. 3. Workplace Stress Most of our life is spent at work and that is a significant source of stress. Are you unhappy with what you do? Having trouble finding worklife balance? Dealing with challenging work relationships? I have personal experience managing teams of up to 250 people so I understand your challenges. Find internal and external balance by assessing what you really want from work and how to get it. Workplace bullying is unfortunately common with 27% of people experiencing bullying at some point in their career. Typically, the most competent and conscientious are bullied by managers, colleagues, or even supervisees, who lack effective stress management and communication skills. Learn how to gain confidence effectively advocate for yourself. 4. Raising Your Financial Set Point Is there a certain income level that you just can’t seem to break through? Have you noticed that when you approach that number, you start to mysteriously incur debt, or you spend frivolously, or you leave your job? You may have hit your financial set point. Our relationship with money reflects narratives about worthiness, safety, ease, and family loyalty. Once you identify and challenge those ideas, you can raise your set point. 5. Couples My approach to couples work is unique in that I have you talk to me rather than each other. I talk to each of you one at a time, with your partner in listening mode. It helps each person to relax and hear the other from a different perspective. Couples are rarely matched in terms of initiative, sex, money or neatness. Often one partner is more ambitious than the other. Or one partner is more of a planner and the other is more spontaneous. Ever argue about spending or saving? Is there tension about who is going to clean the house? Maybe you feel mismatched sexually, or you are negotiating a sexual life that includes kink or polyamory. The most difficult thing about a conflicted or distant relationship is that you may not be happy with how you are showing up in the relationship. Break away from negative patterns and reconnect with your best self. This will help both you and your partner.

Has your relationship become an angry, sad, or scary place leaving you feeling alone, hurt, and discouraged? Are you and your partner feeling lost in conflict cycles you don’t understand and desperately want to change? Many of the couples I work with come to therapy feeling just like you. I understand how much courage it takes to reach out for help and to let another person get inside your relationship, especially when you are feeling so vulnerable. If you are searching for a safe place to explore what's not working in your relationship, and support in creating solutions, I can help.

Humanistic Psychology is based on a positive view of the psyche, and mental illness is often seen as a call from the psyche to pay attention, to become more mindful, and to be willing to listen to your own heart's desire to change and to heal. I profoundly enjoy working with people in an accepting and non-judgmental way that helps them actualize their potentials for healing and for being the very best that they can be. I work with people to "wipe the fog off of the mirror of self-reflection" as they learn to see themselves more clearly. As your psychotherapy proceeds, we work to create a safe relationship through which you can experience unknown or even feared aspects of your personality. We explore possible adjustments in your behaviors, habits, thinking, and emotional processing to improve your life, increase happiness and self-efficacy, and deepen self-love; and we will explore how you can make these changes.

I want to know what brings a smile to your face as you realize there is life to be lived. Our relationship is in the service of real, lasting change that will come from collaboration based on trust. There is a part in you, that know exactly why it came here and what is the task at hand. I like to ask my clients early in our work? "How will you know that you received what you came for?" We re-visit this question until one day we both know the work is done. While I will be keenly interested in how your past has brought you here, we will not dwell there. I am much more interested in what's present for you now and how the best in you can unfold. The change that will revitalize your life will not come from insight alone. We will engage in dialogue, storytelling, relaxation, imagery, dream exploration, and pay attention to body sensation, the seat of the soul. I am multifaceted by nature. A trained musician and composer, a highly regarded software designer, an experienced sailor, a resident and student of many international cultures, a life-long and committed spiritual practitioner, and a loving, happy father and husband. I am an associate of the Milton H. Erickson Institute of the Bay Area and a member of CAMFT.

I think of therapy as like sanctuary - a place where there aren't distractions, where there is an opportunity to pay attention to what is important, in a spirit of kindness. Because of this, many individuals and couples find it to be enjoyable, and very relieving. Of course, since people do therapy to work on painful things, therapy itself isn't always easy. But at least things can be approached thoughtfully and skillfully, in a safe context, and this itself brings great benefits. I work to help you to settle in with yourself, so that you can relate to your life from the deepest, most genuine place possible. Together, we can consider how you relate to yourself and to others - after all, our relationships with ourselves and with others are central to the quality of our lives. I find that from this kind of conversation skillful responses to inner concerns and relationship difficulties arise. I am very experienced at helping people with relationship problems or lack of relationships, anxiety, sadness and depression, with patterns of self-criticism and difficulty relaxing, history of trauma, grief and loss.

We find our way to therapy along numerous paths, carrying with us our own personal wishes and goals, and unique “languages” for what we experience, think, and feel. It is therefore essential for our own therapies to be our spaces in which we can come to better see, know, and be ourselves, and be empowered and joined in doing so. Whether you come to therapy for aid in overcoming distress or challenges, or support in a process of self-discovery and greater authenticity, your experiences deserve to be accepted and understood in your own terms, so that you, yourself, can get your arms around them, and feel equipped to take them on. My approach to therapy is interactive and collaborative. I join the people I work with in putting words, understanding, and meaning to their experiences. I believe that through cultivating this kind of progressive understanding, we can better take charge of the way that we relate to people, situations, and, perhaps most importantly, ourselves. I strive to listen closely and let folks know what I’m hearing from them, encouraging our therapy to take place in the present moment, and point towards the future, and bring another perspective to what’s going on, and what might be done or done differently. In my practice, I work most frequently with people unfulfilled by, and wanting to improve, their relationships, trying to better understand themselves during life transitions or identity development, or who are dealing with painful or sticky emotional experiences that they’ve struggled to resolve on their own. I am a psychological associate in the state of California, with my postdoctoral clinical work supervised by Dr. James Norwood. At this time, I see residents of California for sessions virtually.

We seek therapy because at some level we imagine that life could be better. We all suffer in different ways and suffering is universal, but it is precisely that suffering that leads us into a process of discovering how our deepest selves want to be expressed in the world and then to find the inner resources to live that out. In its truest sense, psychotherapy – which means “tending to the soul” – is not only concerned with alleviating symptoms, resolving issues, or adapting to life’s demands (though these are important), but ultimately with living lives that are more joyful, creative and free. My approach is to discover with you what underlies your symptoms and difficulties and facilitates your psyche’s natural healing process. Our work is collaborative and I am an active part of the process rather than simply a quiet observer. As a Jungian, I work with dreams but not having them will not impede your process. We’d generally meet once or twice per week, sit across from each other and have a conversation.

To start with, somatic psychotherapy can look like traditional talk therapy. We sit in a comfortable room, and together unfold your story and agree upon what to pay attention to first. The first thing that is different are some of the questions of inquiry, which ask about internal states related to your thoughts. In my work with clients we might incorporate gestures, postures, movements, and bodywork, as appropriate. Typically there is a parallel somatic educational process to the unfolding of your experience. The body is brought into the psychotherapeutic process because thinking is not only an abstract function, it is a physical act. The brain is physically continuous with the rest of the body and is influenced by the constant stream of information received through your senses. And so we focus on the regulation of energy in relation to what matters most to you. This often involves your experiences of some or all of the following: grounded-ness, meaning and purpose, connectedness, will and power, communication and expression, and the processing of information.

My clients report they got into therapy because they wanted relief from suffering. They wanted to stop their minds from racing all the time. They say the had trouble sleeping, concentrating, functioning or just being present in life. They say they felt guilty for not being able to stop overthinking. They say they felt like they were just existing but not really living, let alone thriving. If this sounds familiar to you, I can help! A lot of these symptoms are anxiety or depression based and can be linked to trauma. My treatment could be a good fit for you because I specialize in the treatment of anxiety, depression and trauma. You don’t have to suffer in silence anymore. There are ways to get relief & healing that can profoundly change your life. Please know that, with some work, thriving in life is a very real possibility. About me: I am a collaborative strength-based therapist, meaning we will work as a team to elicit your strengths so you can use them to your advantage. I use attachment-based compassion focused interpersonal therapy. I also specialize in a somatic (mind and body) trauma treatment model where you will have an opportunity to reparent your wounded inner child and subsequently heal your relationship with yourself. My style is caring, empathetic and supportive. My clients describe me as down-to-Earth , knowledgeable, engaging, with a good sense of humor they find therapeutic. I’d love to see if my services are a good match for you, so contact me so we can book a free consultation to discuss the possibility of working together.