I am cisgender, female assigned at birth. I was born in Houston and raised in San Marcos, TX. I am from a Southern, poor and working class family of Ashkenazi Jews. My orientation to counseling is informed by paradigms of change and healing that I have been immersed in for many years, including Vipassana meditation in the tradition of S.N. Goenka and Sayagyi U Ba Khin, mutual accompaniment, yoga, mind-matter-body connection and the somatic phenomenon of trauma, DBT, ancestral and intergenerational legacies, Mexican Indigenous and African Indigenous spiritualities, social psychoanalysis and liberation arts. My counseling work is also deeply informed by all of my clients over the years who have taught me through their suffering and healing, what works, what doesn't and how I may best accompany my clients.
What can clients expect to take away from sessions with you?
In our first session, we will illuminate a landscape together that includes the beginning of our path forward. This session is for sharing and inquiry, and for building a rhythm of dialogue. It is also a great time to release held-on-to emotions and thoughts, as you feel safe to do so.
Explain to clients what areas you feel are your biggest strengths.
My biggest strength is my trust and ease that allows me to be deeply present and connected to clients. This means I am responsive to what is happening in each moment. I think in links and patterns, which has proven very helpful for clients in my work. This allows me to understand relational dynamics quickly and identify trauma responses, which helps clients change relationships and create a path forward in healing from trauma. The depth and breadth of my work and academic careers make me very diverse and complex. What I offer and who I am in sessions initiates deep change, I am not a surface-level or small-talk therapist.
About Kristina Bravo
Specializes in
Licensed in
Accepts
Appointments
VirtualMy treatment methods
Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)
CBT has a way of naturally finding itself in the conversation when appropriate and applicable: re-framing or cognitive restructuring, guided discovery, successive approximation (breaking down goals into do-able steps), mindfulness and relaxation/nervous system regulation, various kinds of expression (such as writing), imagery and problem solving.
Dialectical Behavior (DBT)
I trained with Marsha Linehan (DBT creator) in Seattle for 2 years in the early 2000's. DBT's contributions to my work are seamlessly integrated as appropriate (and may be offered in a structured way, upon request by clients), and help my clients with trauma, relationships, connecting to themselves, reducing emotional distress, and DBT helps my clients gain deep insight into their emotions and minds, for example. DBT has 4 components: mindfulness, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness and distress tolerance.
Trauma Informed Care
Healing from trauma is an on-going endeavor, and has ben a part of my work, always. Trauma may be bodily, familial or ancestral, collective, in the psyche. I am, and have been deeply embedded in education and training on various ways to help clients heal from trauma, including addressing violations in sense of safety that are deeply imprinted in the body and nervous system, feeling "trapped" or stuck and creating movement and change, and the implementation of trauma-healing practices as appropriate and as applicable to each client's needs.
Attachment-based
Attachment plays a role in all of our relationships. Attachment work may include the neurobiology of attachment, working towards secure attachment, healing challenging family of origin dynamics, healing any relationship ruptures and examining emotional and behavioral patterns in relationships that aren't working for you.
Multicultural
Academic, personal and professional places I have resided in, which includes my autistic ways of knowing; West African, Mexican-Indigenous and Indigenous spiritualities and healing modalities, Vipassana meditation (oldest known meditation in India); and deep academic studies on the histories of the Southern U.S. (including the development of race, class and white supremacy). I am transparent and natural at traversing the complexities of cultural spaces, places, dialogues. We are always cultural in-the-making.