Individual Therapy for Adults

In-Person Therapy in Oakland, CA and available online in CA

Specialties

    • PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) 

    • Complex/Developmental (childhood trauma) 

    • Religious Trauma 

    • Vicarious Trauma (supporting health professionals, lawyers, social workers, community organizers, and first responders in processing intensity and impact of secondary trauma) 

    • Systemic/Institutional Trauma (impact sexism, racism, classism, homophobia, colonialism can have on self and family).

    • Perfectionism 

    • High Functioning anxiety (perform at work, but can't function at home)

    • Panic Attacks 

    • Excessive Worry

    • People Pleasing Tendencies (struggles with knowing what you need/want, prioritizing others needs/difficulty saying “no”)

    • The impacts of being in narcissistic relationships (with parents, siblings, friend, partners)

    • Anxiety in Relationships

    • High Functioning at work, but feel immobile unable to function at home/with family

    • Feeling lost, aimless, stuck 

    • Low self-esteem, self-blame 

    • Self-sabotaging behavior (at work, in relationships) 

    • Loneliness 

    • Increased Isolation

    • Difficulty sleeping

    • Feeling sad, but don't really know why

Experiences

  • I enjoy hearing how people's unique mix of identities intersect. Utilizing and anti-oppressive lens, as well as feminist psychology, and liberation psychology frameworks,  I take deep pride is supporting folk explore their:

    •  Latinx/ BIPOC Mental Health 

      • Explore with client how larger oppressive systems can create intergenerational  pain, grief, and have a significant impact on how we walk, talk, and engage in our external and internal worlds.  

    • Women's Mental Health

      • Use a critical lens to deconstruct gendered expectations and re-learn/reconnect to self, reduce stress, process suppressed emotions, and open doors to exploring your pleasure, uniqueness, and power.

    • Faith Transitions  

      • Time to process and reflect on religious experiences, upbringing, questions of faith and spirituality and explore what spiritual practices and ethics, morals and values you want to build for yourself.

    • Queer/ Gender Expansive Experiences 

      • Safe space to talk about gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation while holding the nuance and pain of living in a queerphobic and gender-binaried dominant culture.

  • Our stories and experiences shape our openness to intimacy and connection. I love working with clients that are:

    • Dating or wanting to date

    • Experiencing Relationship difficulties 

    • Exploring attachment styles / Attachment wounds 

      • Avoidance/Fear of relationships 

      • Anxiety/Neediness in relationships 

    • Navigating Intercultural Relationships (mixed race, ethnicity, faith, ability, class, gender, sexuality)  

  • I am a sex positive therapist that supports folk exploring their sexuality from celibacy to highly sexual/sexually active. 

    This includes:

    • Queer and gender expansive sexuality 

    • Supporting individuals struggling with shame, fear, and guilt about their sexuality and sexual desires.

    • Kink and Polyamorous

    • I support sex-workers and their mental health

    • Folk with conservative religious upbringings  that are wanting a non-judgemental place to process and explore their sexuality 

Wondering what therapy will look like?

specialties & approaches

1

First, reaching out to talk for a 15 min conversations is a great way to explore fit, and ask any questions you may have.

2

If you’d like to move forward, we’ll schedule a first session. I’ll send you some basic paperwork to complete and you’ll be asked to sign-up to use a secure platform for billing and scheduling purposes.

3

During the first session we’ll talk in more detail about what brings you in, your goals for therapy and how we’ll track progress. We can explore any additional urgent needs and start our work together.

Therapy is a journey. At first we’ll spend time getting to know one another, establish some trust, and then this is where we move deeper. The timeline on this varies person to person. We’ll go at your pace.

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What are the benefits of therapy?

Many people find “talk therapy” to be very helpful but may often struggle with questions like “what should I expect?”, “Am I doing this right?”, or “How do I know if I’m healed?”.

Valid questions, but unfortunately there is no clear cut answer. Different people will have different experiences in therapy and also different goals. Sharing deeply personal issues and processing stressors or experiences is nuanced, takes courage, and can take time. For some, they are satisfied with a few sessions, and for others the issue the initially come in for gets resolved, but they begin to identify deeper wounds, begin uncovering new layers of self-awareness, or have life stressors where they may choose to stay in therapy for longer. But if you commit to the process…

Therapy can help you to:

  • Reduce intensity of traumatic memories and experiences providing relief and regulation to your nervous system 

  • Improve communication and quality of relationships 

  • Learn to identify, name, and express feelings 

  • Rewrite life narratives 

  • Repair and strengthen self-esteem and self-worth and build self-confidence

  • Break intergenerational cycles of pain, and reduce the pain of relational wounds

  • Learn to build trust and compassion for yourself and others 

  • Reflect and process experiences you have been holding all by yourself

  • Learn to focus on present moment and reduce internal voices

  • Build on your inherent strengths and create new visions of what is possible in your life

Get started

Let’s schedule a 15-20 minute consultation call. This is where you can share a little about why you’re seeking therapy, we’ll talk through any questions, and decide if we’re a good fit to work together.

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