Client-centered, depth-oriented psychotherapy for adults and couples in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I work collaboratively with a diverse range of adult clients and couples to help them more deeply understand their experiences, alleviate distress, and live with greater ease and meaning.
I hold a PhD in Clinical Psychology and am a licensed clinical psychologist in San Francisco, CA.
To learn more, keep reading or contact me.
Is psychotherapy right for me?
Perhaps you want to make some changes in your life. Maybe you feel weighed down by difficult emotions, relationships, or past experiences. Or maybe you just want to better understand yourself and what is meaningful to you. Psychotherapy is a collaborative process, rooted in theory and research, that can bring about meaningful, lasting change.
People often wonder when “it’s time” to reach out to a psychotherapist. In reality, there are many “right times” to begin therapy, and analogies between mental health and physical health can help clarify this idea. As surgery is sometimes needed in acute emergencies, psychotherapy can help with acutely distressing feelings or circumstances. As physical therapy can help manage chronic pain, psychotherapy can help manage similarly chronic anxiety or stress. And as regular exercise can help you feel stronger, regular psychotherapy can help you feel more resilient and creative. In short, there is no one reason to begin psychotherapy, and the best time to begin is simply when you feel ready to start.
More on getting started.
Who do you work with?
Just as there are many reasons to begin psychotherapy, clients I work with often enter therapy with varied and interrelated concerns, including (though certainly not limited to):
Professional or academic stress
Workload pressure, adjusting to new roles, difficulties with colleagues, career/industry changes, etc.
Medical illness
Coping with your or a family member’s experience with cancer, coronary heart disease, chronic pain, gastrointestinal complaints, epilepsy, metabolic issues, diabetes, hepatitis, and other medical illness
Mood difficulties
Anxiety, depression, low mood, feeling tense, agitated, angry, or simply feeling “off”
Substance use
Alcohol, marijuana, and other substance use
Challenging relationships
With partners, family members, colleagues, or friends
Feeling “stuck” and/or unable to be creative
Whether through art, writing, building a business, etc. - we are “creative” in different ways and creativity can help us feel more like ourselves
Adjustment to new life stages and changes
Moving, beginning a new job, becoming a parent, loss of a family member or friend, etc.
Seeking stress-management or mindfulness skills
Desire to better manage day-to-day stress and live life with more ease and joy
What is your therapeutic approach?
My therapeutic style is relational and collaborative. I believe psychotherapy works best as an active collaboration between client and therapist, and that it is important you find a therapist who both makes you feel comfortable and who you trust. I also consider various domains of health and wellness - physical, emotional, social, and cultural - in my work with clients.
Every client and session is unique. I employ an integrative approach, drawing upon a variety of types of therapies and techniques (modalities) to best match each client’s needs. Each is grounded in rigorously developed psychotherapeutic theory and empirical literature. You can read more about the types of therapy I employ most often below:
Types of psychotherapy I use most often:
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy helps clients more deeply understand and engage with their experiences, thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and relationships. Central to this approach is the idea that early life experiences, while sometimes outside of our everyday awareness, play an important role in informing our current selves, and that exploring their impact with an attuned therapist can significantly reduce distress and enhance quality of life over time. Psychoanalytic approaches to psychotherapy are rooted in a robust literature of theory and supported by attachment-based and neuroscience research.
Mindfulness-informed psychotherapy
Mindfulness-based approaches slow down patterns of thinking, feeling, and reacting that have become habitual and automatic. Slowing down creates space for novel thinking, affording clients the option for different experiences or outcomes. Mindfulness-based approaches are empirically proven to help lessen mental and physical health-related symptoms, including anxiety, depression, and stress-related illness. For clients interested in mindfulness, my approach involves collaboration to tailor these practices to each client’s needs and goals.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy
Central to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is the idea that even fleeting thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are knowable and interrelated. Identifying and naming these experiences, and understanding the ways in which they interact, is the focus of cognitive-behavioral therapy. Cognitive-behavioral tools can help break down unwanted patterns that have become automatic over time.