LCSW, 10 years of experience
I am a licensed clinical social worker located in Oakland, California. I graduated with a Master’s from Smith College School for Social Work (Northampton, MA), with a focus on psychodynamic and attachment theories. Over the last 10+ years, my clinical work has mostly been in community mental health focused on supporting young children and families recovering from, or still living through, trauma. This work has highlighted and confirmed for me the impact of early childhood experiences and the ripple effect that they have in our lives. My work is trauma-informed, culturally responsive and liberatory in nature. Depending on the unique needs of each person with whom I work, I blend attachment and psychodynamic theories, somatic practices, my own sense of playfulness and an orientation towards the inherent wisdom in each of us and the natural world of which we are a part. I bring with me years of experience working with folks impacted by both big “T” Traumas as well as little “t” traumas. Regardless of what you’ve experienced in your life up to this point, I would love to walk with you as you forge your path now. In the present moment. As a queer, white, cis-woman committed to anti-racism and anti-oppression, I love working with folks whose identities differ from my own and those with whom I experience identity overlap. Ultimately, a trusting relationship with a therapist is one of the most significant predictors for healing and change. I realize that your trust in me may be informed by various elements of my lived experience. I am absolutely open to exploring this together to see if we are a good fit. Let’s schedule a consultation and see how it feels.
For our first session, we'll explore together what has brought you to therapy and what topics or themes you are most interested in focusing. I believe that we are all products of our childhoods and the various life experiences that have led us to the present moment. As such, I like to gather information about family history, social networks, relational constellations, work environment, etc. This does NOT all happen in the first session. It builds over time. But it is a significant part of building a more complete picture of who you are and how you tick so that I can best serve the wisest most adaptive version of you!
In my presence, I want you to feel at ease. Like you're wrapped in a cozy blanket of genuine care and warmth. I use humor, invitations for somatic practices, playfulness and deep interest in what makes you YOU. I believe that your healing is inside of you. I would like to support your journey towards revealing and unlocking this intrinsic healing within yourself. I come to this work with deep humility and curiosity. Every person brings with them their own unique alchemy of culture, family history, varying impacts of systemic oppression(s), wisdom and identities. It is my goal to support the you that YOU want to be, with great care and reverance (and maybe a little levity too!).
I love working with: -transitional aged youth (18-25+) -folks in the perinatal period -people exploring their sexuality and gender expression -parents of children exploring their gender expression -people who are interested in healing -folks going through major life transitions -people who have experienced complex or single occurance traumatic events
My orientation as a therapist is deeply rooted in attachment theory and practice. I believe that early childhood relationships impact our adult selves more than we often want to acknowledge. The patterns created in those early relationships often play out in our adult relationships as well. I am highly relational in my approach and belief the therapeutic relationship can serve as a reparative space for folks who have experienced attachment-based trauma, disruptions or stressors.
I've spent the last 5 years working in Community Based Mental Health supporting children and their caregivers to heal and recover from traumatic events. While this is not the focus of my private practice work, the perspective of Child Parent Psychotherapy deeply informs my approach to work with adults as well. I love working with folks in the perinatal period, making (emotional/mental/psychic) space for the new baby but also the ambivelance and complicated feelings that often accompany this major life transition.
EMDR is a focused technique to support the desensitization and reprocessing of traumatic/stressful life events. Often times when traumatic* events occur, memories are stored with meaning making and a story. We use EMDR to revisit these memories and offer new, more adaptive stories to support healing and growth. *I use traumatic here to represent a broad range of things. These can be "little t" traumas or even just everyday stressors or blocks between your current self and the fully expressed self you would like to inhabit.