Get to know me

In our first session together, here's what you can expect

In our first encounter, we will spend about an hour where I will invite you to talk about what is going on in your life - especially the reason driving you to start therapy in this moment. I will listen carefully in a way that gives you a sense of what our work together will be like, of what we might discover about yourself and your suffering. Therapy is a journey through your past and memories, the origins of your pain. It is a path that leads to new forms of life, built on new choices and deepening awareness of your core desires. My approach is person-centered, it honors your uniqueness. This means I will be very curious about the things you say and how you say them. I blend insights from psychoanalysis with expertise gained over two-decades of deep commitment to meditation. I will ask more questions and rarely give advice. Our work focuses on find your answers to your life that are already waiting to be found.

The biggest strengths that I bring into our sessions

I offer my clients tremendous openness in every session. I cultivated that capacity deep encounters with the unknown in my own psychoanalysis and through intensive meditation. The unknown has been my greatest teacher. It has taught me humility, silence and how to look and listen deeply. I also found in it a real care for each human life in its uniquenesses and anguish. A deep relationship with my own unconscious continues to ripple through all of the ways I live, work, and relate in this world. 

 In addition to my clinical practice, I have served as a meditation teacher for individuals in recovery and at various stages on the paths of insight and awareness for a decade. One of my favorite spots to teach is at Esalen on the cliffs overlooking the ocean and the infinite.

The clients I'm best positioned to serve

I appreciate and welcome a diverse range of identities and lifestyles in my practice. One core of my work is with older teens and young adults. They face a unique set of challenges with launching and finding their place in our contemporary world. I developed expertise at RAMS Child, Youth and Family Clinic and Ruth Asawa High School of the Arts in San Francisco supporting teens and twenty-somethings to navigate life challenges that intersect with neurodiversity, gender and identity, addictions, impulses for self-harm, political and ecological anxiety and more generally with finding their calling in school or career. Having spent more than half of my life outside of America, I am particularly sensitive to how complex, de-centering and overwhelming relationships, career and even the most basic enjoyments can be in a foreign country, or at least in one that is not in all senses home. I have extensive experience working with travelers, immigrants, nomads and third-culture folks of all kinds to work through alienation, identity and questions around core-self and integration in family or society. Weaving together with my background in meditation and art, I find a unique fulfillment in working with people on deeper connection to their creativity or spiritual practice.