LMFT, 5 years of experience
I'm a therapist, musician, and dog caregiver born and raised in the Bay Area and now living in San Jose, CA. I support creative, neurodivergent, and sensitive people improve their relationships with themselves. I help you explore how past experiences, important relationships, and culture have made you see yourself and your abilities a certain way – and what you can do to feel more confident in who you are.
Full disclosure – I like to dive right in on getting to know you, what matters to you, and what we're here to work on. I don't typically share much about myself unless you ask, though I'm always happy to share. Honestly, I'm just excited to get started in most cases, so I go straight to what feels most meaningful to you. The first session usually captures most of the info you would expect to share during an intake/assessment, but in a more conversational way. I like to get a sense of important experiences you've had and how they've shaped you, important relationships throughout your life, behaviors/thoughts that bother you, and what you want your life to look like in the future. We will set a few goals for our work together as well during this session, which we will return to throughout our work together. That being said, don't worry about already knowing what these are, or expecting us to stay rigidly locked in – goals evolve over time, and that's normal!
I mix warmth, humor, and creative problem solving to help you identify what you want to change in your life, and empower you to make those changes yourself. I'm a big believer in unconditional positive regard (basically, count on me to be on your team at all times, even if I need to challenge you on something).
You're a great match to work with me if you relate to any of these experiences: -you're an artist, creative-minded, or aspiring to be more creative -you're diagnosed or self-identified as ADHD, Autistic, or neurodivergent -you identify as LGBTQ+ or feel safer in Queer-aligned spaces -you want to like yourself more, but haven't found out how to really live it; it's more of an idea than a reality -you're a perfectionist or otherwise really hard on yourself and want to work on that -you want therapy to feel comforting and supportive, but you don't want to be "fixed" by someone
Healing and growth happen in relationship. The #1 predictor of success in therapy is the strength of the therapeutic relationship. I emphasize trust, safety, and connection as the top elements of our work together. I've been practicing Person-centered therapy throughout my time as a psychotherapist.