Hi there! My name is Katerina and I'm a California board Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. I've been doing therapeutic work since 2012. For undergrad I attended Santa Clara University and studied psychology and philosophy, and for graduate school I went to the Wright Institute in Berkeley. I've worked with a variety of communities throughout the years spanning young adult former foster youth in San Jose to high schoolers in San Francisco to middle schoolers in Santa Clara. And their parents/caregivers! On a more personal note, I'm originally from LA and came up to the Bay for school. I'm the daughter of a firefighter-paramedic, the granddaugther of Greek immigrants, the granddaugther of Black migrates from the South during the Great Migration, the daughter-in-law of Armenian genocide survivors, and the mother of a rainbow baby. I balance the work I do with taking care of myself through reflective practices, exercise, enjoying music, meditation/mindfulness, naps when I can, being in Community with others, time with loved ones, and engaging in liberation work. If any of this resonates with you, reach out.
What can clients expect to take away from sessions with you?
In our first session we'll review confidentiality, any questions you had about the informed consent, and then I'll go through various questions for an intake. The intake takes 2, maybe 3 sessions and this time is used to get as much as a starting picture about your history as possible. As questions are asked and things come up, I'll make notes of topics/points to return to and once we're done with the info gathering, we'll dive into what's going on for you and move from there. I also like to start and end with some type of mindfulness grounding activity.
Explain to clients what areas you feel are your biggest strengths.
From working with a variety of people and Communities I think one of my greatest strengths as a provider are my ability to be flexible with therapy styles while also keeping the essence of the style(s) being used. Another is having done my own work and continuing self reflective practices so that I'm able to continue learning and growing as both a person and therapist.
About Katerina Pogosov
Licensed in
Accepts
Address
2797 Park Avenue, Santa Clara, CA 95050, Unit 206Appointments
Virtual & in-personMy treatment methods
Adlerian
When using this approach I aim to help clients with developing a sense of self that showcases their positive traits and celebrates the ways that they're enough and whole, instead of entirely focusing on deficits.
Attachment-based
I love attachment based work! Here's why, we get to explore relationships with caregivers (doesn't necessarily mean it's biological parents) and other folks from your past and present with a goal of trying to better understand anxieties, trust & emotional safety, and patterns of behavior as it pertains to others and ourselves.
Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)
CBT can be stale and too manualized for me at times, however, the fundamental elements of our thinking, feeling, and behavior being interlinked are helpful building blocks to use in therapy. I'll use some worksheets depending on what the client is presenting with and when appropriate, grab a mini white board or sheet of paper to start drawing out patterns and using that as a stepping stone to bring awareness to patterns so we can start challenging the ones that aren't serving the client.
Existential
As someone who studied both psychology and philosophy in undergrad, this style has always resonated with me, especially when working with youth and those in transitionary phases in their lives. We can use this style to increase self awareness, look at the systems they're directly and indirectly involved in and how that affects one's sense of self, get an idea of how a certain amount of anxiety may actually be moreso a response to a dysfunctional system we can't escape, and we can discuss ways to find meaning and joy.
Humanistic
This overlaps with existential and really all the styles I use because it focuses on the client being their own individual person. Even though we all come from various Cultural Communities where particular ways of thought and doing things may be common and we ourselves align with them, there are always going to be little things that are different. This style is used to help clients trust their instincts, their familial/cultural wisdom, to help with growing and healing.