Often I could feel myself fumbling around for the right words. Truthfully, it’s a BIG question. Any person who chooses to become a therapist has an origin story that is inevitably very personal. For me, it was some combination of my spirituality, wanting to be in a life of service, and experiencing first hand how family trauma legacies get passed down.
As a kid, I found people’s inner worlds and relationships completely fascinating. Having parents of different cultures helped me to understand how to be flexible and aware of unspoken influences on our choices. Pretty early on, I knew I wanted to be on a path that would use my gifts of intense curiosity and insight AND challenge my own growth every step of the way.
When I am not plumbing the depths of human experience, my fun times are petting ALL the animals that will let me, listening to hip-hop, beating a drum, and eating dark chocolate. My go-to karaoke is Montell Jordan. I dance with a little too much abandon – I try to remember to stretch.
This thing called ‘therapy’ is a two person (sometimes three person) meditation on what it is like to be in your skin. When you want change, the irony is the slower we unwind your thoughts and feelings, the more bang for your buck you get. That means all the rushing thoughts and worries you live with are distracting you from making a difference in your own life. In my office, my clients depend on me to keep it real with them and use my truth in service to their healing. We stay focused on your current goals because therapy should be relevant to what you want to change right now. We laugh where we can, finding humor as medicine, even in dark moments.
My clinical theoretical orientation is psychodynamic – a blend of Object Relations, Jungian, and somatic approaches. For couples therapy, I have advanced training in both attachment and differentiation theoretical models. In addition to private practice, I’ve worked with children in low-income schools, elders in residential settings, and teens and their families in the juvenile justice system.
I am an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist. I am proud to serve as the current Co-President on the board of Bay Area Open Minds, a professional therapist organization committed to gender, sexual, and relationship diversity. I am listed as a Kink Aware Professional with NCSF.