(she/her)
Hi, I'm Amanda. I help people who are exhausted from fighting their own mind — whether that's the relentless cycle of mood swings, the weight of depression, or the constant hum of anxiety that won't let them rest. I'm a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist — I work individually with adults and young adults. I received my Master's degree from California Institute of Integral Studies and have been working with clients for 15 years. During our initial sessions, we will examine the issues at hand and collaborate to create a plan that helps you regain control of your life. Most of my clients notice a positive difference within the first month. I am a creative spirit who also knows how to create structure for my clients in a personalized way.
What to Expect & How to Prepare- Taking the step to begin therapy is an act of real courage, and I want you to know that you've already done something meaningful simply by being here. My goal for our first session together is not to overwhelm you or push you toward anything you're not ready for — it is simply to begin. To sit together, to listen, and to start building the kind of trust that makes meaningful change possible. We Go at Your Pace- From the very first moment we meet, I want you to feel comfortable. There is no script you need to follow, no particular way you are supposed to feel, and no pressure to share more than you're ready to. Our first session will move at whatever pace feels right for you. Some people arrive with a clear sense of what they want to work on. Others arrive feeling uncertain, overwhelmed, or unsure how to put their experience into words — and that is completely okay. Wherever you start, we will begin there together. What We'll Talk About- Our first conversation will gently explore what has brought you to therapy at this particular moment in your life. I'll ask some open-ended questions to better understand what you've been experiencing, what has been weighing on you, and what you are hoping to feel or achieve through our work together. This is not an interrogation — think of it more as a conversation between two people getting to know each other. You are always free to say "I'm not sure," "I'm not ready to talk about that yet," or simply "I don't know where to start." All of those responses are welcomed and respected. I may also ask a little about your background and history — not to reduce you to a diagnosis or a checklist, but because understanding the fuller picture of who you are helps me support you in a way that is truly tailored to your needs. Building a Plan That's Right for You One of my most important goals for our first session is to begin forming a picture of what you need — not what a textbook says someone in your situation needs, but what you specifically need. Every person who walks through my door is unique, and I take that seriously. What you share with me in this first session will help me begin crafting a thoughtful, personalized plan for the sessions that follow. This plan is not rigid — it will evolve as you do, shifting and adjusting to meet you wherever you are at any given time. Therapy is a living process, not a fixed program. The Importance of Feeling Comfortable The relationship between a therapist and a client is unlike any other. It requires a particular kind of trust, openness, and safety to truly flourish. That is why I believe wholeheartedly that feeling comfortable with your therapist is not a luxury — it is essential to the work we do together. Towards the end of our first session, I will check in with you — not just to schedule next steps, but genuinely to hear how the experience felt for you. Did you feel heard? Did you feel safe? Do you sense that this could be a space where you might grow? If the answer is yes, I would love for us to continue working together. And if you have any doubts or hesitations — please tell me. I will never take it personally, because I care far more about your wellbeing and your progress than I do about anything else. Finding the right therapist is one of the most important things you can do for yourself, and you deserve to get it right. A Final Word Before We Begin It is entirely normal to feel nervous before a first therapy session. You might wonder whether you will say the right things, whether I will judge you, or whether this will actually help. These are all natural feelings, and you are far from alone in having them. What I can promise you is this: from the moment you walk in, you will be met with warmth, without judgment, and with genuine care. My role is not to tell you what to do or to fix you — you are not broken. My role is to walk alongside you as you find your way toward the life and the sense of self that you deserve. I am truly glad you are here. Let's begin.
My Greatest Strengths- If you're someone who has been living with anxiety or a mood disorder for a while — maybe you've even done therapy before — you probably already have a lot of self-awareness. You know your patterns. You can often see yourself doing the thing even as you're doing it. And yet, somehow, that awareness hasn't been quite enough to stop the patterns. That's one of the most frustrating places to be. And it's exactly the kind of work I find most meaningful. I work primarily with high-functioning adults who are managing anxiety, depression, or other mood-related challenges, but still feeling intense suffering. On the outside, life might look pretty put-together. But on the inside, there's often a quiet exhaustion — from overthinking, from emotional swings that feel out of proportion, from coping strategies that used to work and don't anymore, or from simply carrying more than most people around you realize. If any of that resonates, you're in the right place. I'm both a thinker and a feeler — and I think you need both. My biggest strength as a therapist is that I bring two kinds of intelligence into the room: the analytical and the emotional. A lot of people come to therapy having experienced one or the other — sessions that felt like pure analysis with little emotional resonance, or sessions that were heavy on feeling but left them without any real tools or framework. I try to offer something more whole than that. Some of what we do together will be "neck up" work — using the mind to understand what's really going on beneath the surface. We'll look at long-held patterns, trace where certain beliefs and responses came from, and work to understand the story your nervous system has been telling you — often for decades. That kind of insight is genuinely valuable. Understanding yourself more clearly is never wasted. But for most people, insight alone isn't enough to create change. That's where "neck down" work comes in. I draw on mind-body techniques and arts-based therapies that access parts of your experience that words and analysis don't always reach. Mood and anxiety disorders aren't just cognitive — they live in the body, in the breath, in the way your chest tightens before you even know you're stressed. Addressing that layer of experience is just as important as the thinking work, and often more immediately relieving. When both approaches work together, something real shifts. It's not just about understanding yourself better — it's about actually feeling different from the inside out. From insight to real, lasting change Here's something I believe firmly: awareness is the beginning, not the end. Knowing why you do something is an important first step — but it doesn't automatically change the behavior, the emotional pattern, or the impact on your daily life. That next part takes skill-building, practice, and a willingness to try things differently. This is where I love to collaborate. Once we've done the work of gaining insight and understanding, we turn our attention to something equally important: what are the concrete skills and strategies that are going to help you actually live differently? I also draw on elements of Dialectical Behavior Therapy — DBT — because I find it incredibly practical and effective for the kind of clients I work with. DBT offers real, learnable tools for managing intense emotions, tolerating distress without making things worse, improving relationships, and building a life that feels more stable and meaningful. These aren't abstract concepts — they're skills you can use on a Tuesday afternoon when everything feels like too much. Things like learning to regulate your nervous system before it reaches a tipping point, recognizing the difference between reacting and responding, and building daily habits and routines that actually support your mood rather than quietly undermining it. For many, this part of the work often feels like a relief. You're not starting from scratch — you have real strengths and capabilities to build on. What we're doing is taking those strengths and pairing them with a more intentional toolkit, so that the patterns you've been stuck in for years finally have somewhere else to go. Lifestyle change that actually fits your life- One of the things I care about most is making sure that what we work on in sessions translates into your actual life. Not in a way that feels prescriptive or overwhelming, but in a way that's realistic, sustainable, and genuinely yours. For adults living with mood or anxiety disorders, the connection between daily habits and emotional wellbeing is enormous — and often underestimated. Sleep, movement, connection, how you structure your days, how you talk to yourself, how you rest — all of these things interact with your mental health in ways that are worth paying attention to. Part of our work together may involve looking honestly at some of those areas and exploring small, meaningful shifts that support the bigger changes you're working toward. This isn't about adding more things to your to-do list. It's about building a life that holds you better. What working with me actually looks like One session might feel like a thoughtful, exploratory conversation — tracing a pattern back to its roots, making connections, gaining clarity. Another might involve something more creative or body-based, or might be focused on practicing a specific skill or working through a real situation you're navigating right now. It shifts depending on what you need, and I'll always work collaboratively with you to make sure we're spending our time in the way that feels most useful. What stays consistent is the goal: helping you integrate all the parts of yourself — the analytical and the emotional, the insight and the action — so that growth doesn't just make sense in your head, but actually shows up in your life. If you're tired of just managing or surviving, and ready to actually change, I'd love to connect.
I help people who struggle with bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety stop feeling at the mercy of their mood and mind shifts. If that sounds like you, I want you to know something before we even meet: I get it. Not in a surface-level, clinical way — but genuinely, deeply get it. And I know there are ways through. You've probably been managing this for a while. You know the cycle. You do everything you're supposed to do — you try, you push through, you hold it together — and still the swings come. The waves of anxiety and depression arrive in ways that feel sudden and confusing, even when part of you knows they've been building. Despite your best efforts, the moods still shift in ways that feel beyond your control, and that gap between how hard you're trying and how things still fall apart can be one of the most exhausting things in the world. When my clients first come to see me, they're often depleted. Some are defeated. They've been riding the rollercoaster of trying to manage a complex illness for so long that the ride itself has become its own kind of trauma. Medication helps — it really does — but it doesn't solve everything, and you know that better than anyone. There are still the hard days. Still the episodes. Still the aftermath. Many of my clients carry a quiet grief that doesn't get talked about enough: the loss of who they were before the diagnosis, or before they fully understood what they were dealing with. There's a mourning that happens when you realize your brain works differently than you thought, and that some of the things you hoped for yourself may need to look different now. Learning to accept that — to find a new normal that still feels like a good life — is real, important work, and it takes time. There's often shame too. The feeling that this illness is something to hide, something that makes you fundamentally broken or untrustworthy. Even in moments of genuine success — the accolades, the love, the accomplishments — there's a voice underneath that says it could all fall apart. That you could sabotage it. That you might not deserve it. That one bad episode could undo everything. On the outside, most of my clients look like they have it together. They're juggling work, family, relationships, and responsibilities. They're capable and often impressive in the ways they show up for the world. But on the inside, it's a different story — one that only a few trusted people ever get to see, and even those people don't always know how to help. Sometimes the nature of the illness strains relationships or leaves burned bridges behind, and carrying the weight of that takes its own toll. And when things do unravel — after a mood episode fades, or after a moment of acting out of character — no one on earth is harder on you than you are on yourself. The self-criticism can be relentless. The shame spiral, exhausting. You want to feel more level, more often. You want to handle stress without it derailing you. You want to stop feeling like a burden to the people you love, and stop fearing that who you are when you're struggling is somehow who you really are. You want to find a way to accept your illness without letting it define you — to build a life that feels stable and full and genuinely yours. That is exactly what I'm here to help with. My clients aren't fragile. They're some of the most resilient, self-aware, deeply feeling people I've ever met. What they need isn't to be fixed — they aren't broken. What they need is the right support, the right tools, and a space where they don't have to mask or manage or perform. A space where the full truth of their experience is welcome. You deserve to go through your days with the ability to recognize what's happening inside you before it escalates. You deserve to know what to do and when — to have a toolkit that actually matches the state you're in, not a one-size-fits-all approach that doesn't account for how complex this really is. You deserve to feel proud of who you are, not just on the good days, but on the hard ones too. A stable, meaningful, fulfilling life is not out of reach for you. I've seen it happen, and I believe it's possible for you. If you're ready to stop just surviving the cycles and start building something steadier, I'd love to work with you.
Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)
For 15 years, I have integrated cognitive-behavioral techniques; knowing how the mind impacts behaviors is often vital to personal growth and change.
Mind-body approach
I have taught yoga and other mind-body approaches since 2000. All of our emotions and histories live in our bodies. Knowing how to release and change how our bodies respond to stress is a hallmark of long-lasting healing and change.
Eclectic
I also specialize in creative arts and expressive arts therapies. Oftentimes, using creativity can get to the deeper roots of issues, challenges, and long-held patterns.
1 rating with written reviews
May 9, 2025
Amanda is compassionate, honest, thoughtful, open, and wholly supportive.