Specialties
Trauma and PTSD
Anxiety
Coping Skills
+7
Hi, I’m a licensed psychotherapist based in Berkeley CA and serving clients statewide via Telehealth. I have over 20 years of experience working and volunteering in community mental health and have been practicing as a psychotherapist since January 2018. I received my Masters in Integral Counseling Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in 2019, my Bachelors in Psychology from Reed College in 2010, and my license (LPCC) in February 2023.
I am trained as an integrative psychotherapist and work holistically and relationally. I believe all facets of life are (naturally) interrelated--emotional, cognitive, relational, cultural, physical/physiological, spiritual, societal/political, existential. I incorporate frameworks, orientations and insights from across the field: attachment-based (psychodynamic), somatic (Polyvagal, Somatic Experiencing, neuroscience), humanistic, mindfulness, gestalt, self-psychology, ACT, DBT, CBT, systems, existential, holistic/spiritual perspectives and wisdom like Buddhism, narrative, human needs perspectives like self-determination theory, communication frameworks like NVC and insights from the Gottmans, and paradigms and perspectives on social justice like feminism, analysis of power and privilege, intersectionality, intergenerational and societal trauma, psychological/emotional/verbal abuse, narcissism/scapegoating/othering etc.
I am guided by a trauma-informed approach that aims to foster empowering client-centered, collaborative, transparent and intersubjective relational conditions that I believe support people’s natural ability to experience safety, connection, and authentic actualization. My work is informed by a lifetime of deep inquiry into human needs and the complex ways familial, social, cultural, economic and biological contexts inform how they may be nurtured, supported, neglected or actively or insidiously contravened. I believe that human attachments and early life experiences, as well as structural power dynamics in social/societal systems, are typically foundationally informative to the bridge or gap between trauma/suffering and thriving in safety and connection. I think humanness and understanding of / respect for these facts, alone, can be a healing provision of therapy relationship.