Find a Therapist near South San Francisco, CA

Looking for a therapist who is warm, honest and real? I never check my humor at the door. I want to help you build strong relationships and feel confident and joyful. Isn't that what life's about? You deserve to feel like your best self. I believe humans have incredible strength, resilience and creativity. We just lose track of it at times. This is when therapy can be a lifesaver. With over a decade of experience, I combine Eastern philosophy with cutting edge techniques. I specialize in assisting individuals and couples during challenging transitions. It's incredibly painful to feel scared and alone. You need tools to help you thrive. I am here to support you in creating change, and living with passion. Your program is tailor-made, assisting you in developing better understanding of self, changing negative frameworks, and moving towards a life that fills you with joy. Contact me for a complimentary 15 minute phone session or schedule an appointment to meet for a session. It is my belief that this work can be a life-changing step towards your transformation and personal growth.

I help people who are told they're “too sensitive,” “too much,” feel misunderstood, or feel alienated from the mainstream, people looking for a therapist who "gets it." You are not too intense, too sensitive, or too "out there." The whole of you is welcome with me! I specialize in both individual and couples therapy. Individuals who work with me are often struggling with intense emotions, and couples who work with me are often stuck in loops of conflict or suffering from breakdowns in trust. I enthusiastically welcome activists, LGBTQIA+, poly, kinky folks, artists, dreamers, and highly sensitive and emotionally intense types. In sessions, we will explore the deeper aspects of your experience, collaborate on the practical problems in your life, increase awareness, get unstuck from unhelpful patterns, soothe anxieties, strengthen relationships, and learn to set boundaries and communicate. My style is direct, warm, humorous, and, at times, challenging. I came to my role as a psychotherapist after experiencing the powerful impact of therapy in my life. I feel honored to be able to facilitate the transformative process that psychotherapy provides, and witness the growth of insight, self-compassion, authenticity, and resiliency in my clients. Reach out to chat for 15 minutes to see if we are a good fit.

I am an Oakland-based individual and couples therapist who believes that healing the brokenness of our world begins with reverence for the interconnectedness of all living beings. I am committed to supporting people’s process of re-membering themselves into the tapestry of their life path through psychodynamic and family systems-based therapeutic exploration. My therapeutic approach often draws those who feel that their connection to belonging and purpose has become frayed by cruel inner critics and a culture obsessed with hyper-productivity. For those who have been made to feel that their lovability depends on their usefulness and willingness to self-abandon, the cost of “belonging” can feel like an impossibly high price to pay. And yet, when the polish of a perfected persona is stripped away, it can create space for the gritty, seemingly unlovable parts of ourselves to reveal our authentic grace. When we find ourselves feeling isolated, choiceless, and disconnected from our fiery essence, it is a sure sign it’s time to turn inwards and tend to our flame. While it can feel terrifying to set down the masks we wear for protection and self-preservation, it opens the possibility of having a deep need finally met: to be seen and accepted in our entirety. Contacting our harm, our hurt, and our shadow is tough—often annihilating—work, but they are chapters of our stories that deserve just as much attention and care as our greatest victories. Honoring the divine connectedness of all living things includes bearing witness to the sacred thread that weaves together our darkness and our light. It is an opening—a provocative invitation to see yourself wholly, perfectly fractured, just as all living things are.

I offer clear communication in a down-to-earth environment. My goal is to secure your strengths while identifying and reducing patterns that are holding you back. I've helped people address loneliness, grief, self-limiting beliefs, and a desire to get past the feeling of being stuck in their lives. Individuals, couples, and friendships have found fresh perspectives on relationships with themselves and one another. My orientation has grown out of somatic work and attachment theory. I am trained in Internal Family Systems therapy (IFS) and Hakomi, in addition to psychodynamic therapy and CBT. If your best efforts to address your situation aren't working for you, let's look at some new approaches. Call for a free 15-30 minute phone consultation. We'll talk about your concern, and discuss how working together can point you in a direction best suited for you. I'm happy to answer your questions about my style of work, what sets me apart from other psychotherapists, or about therapy in general.

With a warm and friendly presence, I offer a collaborative experience of therapy. I have helped many individuals handle difficult work situations or career changes in academia, tech, and other fields. I also enjoy supporting people who are facing day-to-day stressors, loss, transitions, or issues with parenting. With exploration, individuals can discover new and creative ways to think about and address life challenges. In addition to individual and couples counseling, I offer mediation and conflict resolution services.

I use integrated approaches, including person-centered, trauma-informed, attachment theory, and practical psychoanalysis, to support youths and adults in establishing their independence and confidence and to help couples improve communication and strengthen relationships. My specialties are the multicultural treatment of adolescents and adults with anxiety, grief and loss, and depression. I work with families on dynamics, parent-child relationships, and conflict resolution.

Congratulations on your search for more meaning, more health, more intimacy, or a more vibrant life! I have been a psychologist for over thirty years and am grateful every day to do this work. I have been doing it long enough that I am good at what I do, and know what I can't do. I like to meet with people and assess together whether we are a good fit. I am direct, perceptive, intuitive, and straightforward. I have worked with many different kinds of people with different kinds of problems over the years and especially enjoy working with couples, women, therapists, people from minority cultures or orientations, and people who want to use the therapy relationship to heal. For people who are interested, I also do psychoanalysis, which is a more intensive form of therapy multiple times per week. I am a mother of an adult child, a lesbian, a gardener, and a long-term resident of San Francisco. Give me a call if you feel I might be a fit.

Welcome to your opportunity to make a real change in your life! I am here to help support and heal who you are now, while stimulating your growth toward who you are capable of being. Whether you know it or not, you arrive with all the resources you need to heal and thrive deep within you. It's my job to help you access those resources. While working through your challenges, we find and activate your strengths. We heal your hurt places, build your resilience, and expand your capacity. I honor your individuality and tailor my approach to meet you where you are now, and help you get to where you need to go. I work with people who are ready to go beyond willpower-based change; who are ready to do what it takes to genuinely heal and evolve. I am here to co-create a relationship with you that will activate your innate ability to transform and evolve. It is through this kind of deep, foundational work that we are able to help you heal and evolve, and ultimately... relax! Willpower-based change works only as long as you can hold it. When stressors arise in life, most of us fall back into our most familiar patterns in order to try to survive the storm. This is not failure, it is simple, human neurobiology. My supportive, relational approach activates your brain's continuing ability to change (neuroplasticity) so that you can finally relax, knowing that the change you have realized will hold, even when life "hits the fan." While my education, training, and professional experiences are indispensable, what most qualifies me to guide from "the chair" has been forged from my experience healing on "the couch." I offer you the resources I have gained through my own extensive personal work. This means I will never presume to walk you through territory I have not traversed myself. I've developed a powerful compass, which has allowed me the honor of guiding many others through their processes of healing and evolution. What sets me apart from other therapists? First, I am very genuine, connective, active, and personable with my clients. I do not check my sense of humor at the door. Being authentic helps my clients to relax and be more fully themselves, which allows our work to be powerful and effective. Working with me leads to feeling solidly like you have someone who knows you, understands you, connects with you, and is dedicated to helping you create the experience you want to have in life. I have extensive education, experience, and training, as well as an unusually wide breadth of life experience, and am therefore able to have an in-depth understanding of many experiences you might think you could never share or relate with anyone about. Most importantly, I remain actively engaged in my own personal work in order to bring a level of deep, ongoing personal experience you won't find with all therapists. I cannot emphasize enough how vital this is to the effectiveness of a psychotherapist... we learn the most and become better able to help others heal through our own work and healing. Thus, the maxim, "healer, heal thyself."

When I sit with a client, either an individual or a couple, my primary objective is to fully see and deeply understand them and their experience. Feeling like someone “gets” and accepts you is critical to developing self-worth. Yet many of us have never felt truly appreciated for our unique selves by our families or the others closest to us. That absence and the ache it causes is often underneath the issues that bring clients to therapy. In therapy, feeling seen and accepted is how the healing begins. My goal as a therapist is to build a collaborative relationship with my clients. Together we can peel back the protective layers and gently reveal the sources of the pain beneath. Maybe you’ve done a lot of work on yourself and developed a keen self-awareness, yet you still can’t find love for yourself or build the life you want. These are often the roots driving our habits and the self-defeating patterns we use to prevent ourselves from being hurt again. The fear of vulnerability and the behaviors we employ to keep us safe, may now be preventing us from receiving love from others and creating the types of relationships we desire. Our beliefs about ourselves often keep us rooted in shame, stuck in a world where we are unworthy of the things we want, including love for ourselves. Wouldn’t it be amazing to shed your negative self beliefs and develop new ways of interacting with the world that creates new opportunities for growth and relationships built on trust and acceptance? I can help you write a new narrative focused on the present and the future, not driven by the past. A life with joy and contentment.

Many couples+ and individuals I work with are on the brink of expansion. Perhaps you are navigating new sexual interests, ethical non-monogamy, or dating for money. Maybe you've been polyamorous for years but are navigating the transition to include new partners into a shared household. Maybe it's time to explain it to the kids. Often there is an income, power, or sexual desire discrepancy causing friction that deserves tending to create sustainable dynamics. Many of the individuals I work with traverse the world with partners, genders, fetishes, or professional experiences that are misunderstood by the dominant culture. I work frequently with people recovering from orthodox experience. I am in service to your healing, keeping you connected to a grounded source of abundance, gaining skills to navigate personal and professional dynamics, and being in keen awareness of your power. I provide sex-positive, body-positive therapy for individuals, couples, and constellations embracing that consensual sexual activities are fundamentally healthy and pleasurable. I support folks navigating their relationship to substances and integrating psychedelic experience. I use emotionally focused, somatic, and attachment-focused evidence-based practices informed by Womanism, Jungian, and Transpersonal Psychology‍. I’m an immigrant. I’m queer. I’m non-binary. I am deeply nourished supporting people therapeutically and consider this work a personal calling. Together we can work to identify values, make meaning, integrate experience, and build you a network of support. Originally an ecotherapist, I now work mostly by phone or by video but continue to encourage my clients to consider meeting me while walking, or moving in their bodies when appropriate. I continue to offer ecotherapy when requested in three locations; San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Humboldt county redwood forest. “The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.” ― Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Congratulations--by seeking counseling, you're taking the first step in helping yourself! Research shows that because you're motivated to search for a therapist, you possess the inner resources, resilience, and will to change. I love people and am passionate about doing excellent therapy. I offer brief-term counseling for rapid symptom reduction, as well longer-term psychotherapy for deeper exploration. I work collaboratively with you to insure we're optimizing a tailor-made treatment for your unique needs. I have a wide range of experienced over the past 40 years, and my specialties include: anxiety; depression; chronic painillness, relationship issues--in individual andor couples, sexual difficulties, and cross-cultural conflicts. I also do mindfulness training, including meditation instruction. I use many interventions, e.g. psychodynamic, mindfulness training, humanistic, interpersonalrelational, cognitive-behavioral, ACT (Acceptance Commitment Therapy), communication skills. Depending on your preference and needs, I do sessions in-office, telephone, WhatsApp, FaceTime, and Skype with video. Please visit my website for more information or Feel free to call for a free phone consultation.

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.