Licensed to practice in California and accepts 14 insurances. Specializes in Anxiety, Foster Care/Adoption, Trauma and PTSD and 6 more.
(she/her)
I work with adults who are carrying experiences that are hard to put into words — adoption, foster care histories, grief, trauma, anxiety, identity questions, cultural displacement, creative blocks, and complicated family relationships. Many of my clients feel caught between worlds: between families, cultures, roles, languages, or versions of themselves. Some are adult adoptees or people connected to foster care. Some are artists, caregivers, or sensitive people who have learned to hold a lot quietly. As an LMFT and Board Certified Art Therapist, I combine talk therapy with art therapy, somatic awareness, relational therapy, EMDR-informed work, and trauma-informed care. You do not need to be an artist to benefit from art therapy. Creative work can offer another way to notice and understand what may not be fully available through language. I also bring lived experience as a transracial Latina adoptee, but our work centers you: your pace, your body, your relationships, and what you are ready to explore. *I am currently accepting new clients through select insurance plans only.
Our first session is a chance for us to get a sense of each other and begin building a foundation for the work. We will talk about what brought you to therapy, what feels most important right now, and what you are hoping might change. I will ask questions about your history, current supports, relationships, and goals, but we will move at a pace that feels manageable. If you are curious about art therapy, we can talk about what that might look like. There is no pressure to make art in the first session, and no art experience is needed. By the end of the session, my hope is that you have a clearer sense of how I work and whether this feels like a good fit.
I bring warmth, steadiness, curiosity, and clinical depth. I am comfortable sitting with complexity, contradiction, grief, uncertainty, and experiences that do not resolve neatly. My training as both an LMFT and Board Certified Art Therapist allows me to work verbally, creatively, relationally, and somatically. Some clients need words. Some need image, gesture, metaphor, movement, or silence before words can come. I pay close attention to pacing, consent, attachment, and the body’s signals, especially when working with trauma, adoption, identity, and loss. I also work well with creative people and caregivers who are used to holding a lot for others. Therapy with me is collaborative and grounded. We will not force insight or rush toward a neat resolution. We will make room for what is present and build more connection, choice, and self-understanding over time.
I work best with individual adults 18+ who are navigating adoption, foster care histories, grief, trauma, identity, cultural displacement, life transitions, creative blocks, anxiety, depression, or complex family relationships. I am especially well suited for adult adoptees, people with complicated or fragmented family histories, artists and creative people, caregivers, and those carrying losses that others may not fully recognize. You do not need to know exactly what you want to say before beginning therapy. Part of the work can be finding language — or finding other forms of expression — for what has been hard to name. I do not provide couples, family, or child therapy.
My somatic approach helps clients notice how experiences live in the body, especially when words are not enough or when insight alone has not led to change. We may gently track sensation, breath, posture, tension, numbness, grounding, or nervous system responses as they arise in session. Somatic work is always collaborative and paced carefully. I do not push clients into material faster than their system can tolerate. This approach can be especially helpful for trauma, grief, anxiety, adoption-related loss, identity questions, and experiences that feel fragmented or difficult to explain.
My attachment-based work focuses on how early relationships, family systems, separation, loss, and belonging shape a person’s sense of self and patterns of connection. Together, we may explore how old protective strategies show up in current relationships, boundaries, trust, anxiety, people-pleasing, grief, or fear of abandonment. This approach is especially important in my work with adult adoptees, people with foster care histories, and clients navigating complex family relationships. The goal is not to blame the past, but to understand how your system learned to protect you and to build more choice in how you relate to yourself and others now.
My culturally sensitive approach attends to the ways identity, family, culture, race, language, adoption, displacement, and belonging shape mental health. I work with clients whose experiences may not fit neatly inside one family, one culture, one language, or one simple story of identity. This work is collaborative and non-assumptive. I do not expect clients to educate me about every part of who they are, and I also do not assume I already know. We make room for complexity, grief, anger, uncertainty, code-switching, cultural disconnection, and the slow work of forming identity on your own terms.
I use EMDR-informed therapy to support clients working with trauma, grief, anxiety, painful memories, and experiences that continue to feel activated in the present. EMDR can help the nervous system reprocess material that feels stuck, overwhelming, or disconnected from ordinary talk therapy. Before moving into EMDR work, I focus on preparation, stabilization, consent, and pacing. We will talk through what the process involves and decide together whether it is clinically appropriate. EMDR is not something I rush; it is one tool within a broader trauma-informed therapy relationship.
My approach is integrative, which means I draw from several clinical frameworks depending on what a client needs. Sessions may include talk therapy, art therapy, somatic awareness, attachment-based work, relational therapy, EMDR-informed care, and creative reflection. I do not use a one-size-fits-all model. Some clients need language and insight. Others need image, metaphor, body awareness, silence, or a slower way of approaching material. We work collaboratively to find the pace and methods that support your nervous system, goals, and lived experience.