Licensed to practice in California and accepts 2 insurances. Specializes in Anxiety, Attachment Issues, Trauma and PTSD and 4 more.
(he/him)
Clients say this provider is
Over the past 16 years, I've worked across clinical and educational settings. My approach is integrative, drawing primarily on psychodynamic and somatic modalities and informed by current neuroscience research on emotion, memory, and attachment. I tailor my approach to what each client needs. I trust in people's innate capacity to heal, and I help clients explore their lives with curiosity and compassion rather than judgment.
In our first session, I'll focus on understanding your concerns and goals, and answering any questions you have about how I work. Beyond that first meeting, therapy with me involves listening and speaking a bit differently than you might expect — developing comfort with free association and somatic awareness, rather than repeating what you already know about your situation in familiar terms. Change is more likely to come from letting your attention wander and noticing what shows up, rather than from analyzing a problem from the outside.
My focus is on building present-moment awareness of beliefs, emotions, and bodily sensations. Much of what troubles us are patterns that once made sense — ways of coping or protecting ourselves that developed for good reason, often early in life — that now run automatically, but don't meet our needs. Rather than "fixing" a problem or giving advice, my work aims to help clients recognize these patterns as they arise and, over time, build new, more satisfying ways of responding.
I work best with people who are ready to look at the patterns that have kept them stuck with both compassion and honesty — and who are curious about what it might feel like to try a different approach. One thing worth noting: my somatic and psychodynamic approach asks clients to engage in a different kind of communication than discussion, intellectualization, or venting. The goal isn't just to talk about problems, but to work with bodily sensation, follow associations and memories, and notice how automatic emotional patterns show up in the present moment.
My training is rooted in psychodynamic theory, beginning at Smith College. I'm particularly influenced by Mark Solms's neuropsychoanalytic approach, which holds that psychological distress often stems from outdated "action plans" — automatic patterns formed in childhood to meet emotional needs that went unmet at the time. Because these patterns operate largely outside conscious awareness, therapy focuses on bringing them into the room as they happen — through free association, somatic tracking, and attention to the therapeutic relationship itself — so the client can gradually build, test, and find more satisfying ways of meeting those needs.
I hold certified training in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (SP), a framework well-suited to trauma and attachment work. SP challenges purely "top-down," talk-based approaches to symptoms by reintegrating the lived experience of the body. Key concepts include titration (working with emotional and physical activation in manageable doses, rather than becoming overwhelmed), grounding and resourcing, and the understanding that many of our habitual patterns operate outside conscious control — stored as procedural, body-based memory rather than as things we can simply recall and think through. Present-moment sensation in the body often becomes a way of reaching memories and emotions that are otherwise hard to access directly.
2 ratings with written reviews
June 15, 2026
I really like Sean for the kindness and presence he brings gs. I feel safe being in my body around him and that’s powerful
March 3, 2026
I like Sean's authenticity. He's also open-minded, and brings a collaborative feel to each session. He's genuinely curious and practical. He's a good person to have in your corner if you're processing trauma or struggling with PTSD.