My training is primarily from an integrative, systems-centered approach, that draws from the best of many worlds, including cognitive, somatic, and psychodynamic methods. Meaning you’ll learn tools to undo limiting self-beliefs and thought patterns, to befriend the signals and inherent wisdom in your body, and that we’ll do so in the context of a caring, attuned therapeutic relationship, which itself can be a vehicle for growth and transformation.
I’m deeply grateful to have been introduced to an integrative approach (different than eclectic approaches), as the tools and frameworks work in concert. Toward what? is essentially up to each client; and as I see it, greater freedom (within our natural constraints) is a fundamental direction of growth.
I also integrate what are commonly called mindfulness approaches into my work, though I rarely use that term myself. Informed by my own liberatory practice
Finally, I deeply value and seek to include what’s known as a “feedback-informed” approach, which incorporates regular (each session) opportunities for client feedback, which helps on multiple levels: to develop an honest and authentic therapeutic relationship, to grow into and embody empowered relationality, and to support us in noticing what is working well, where the leranings may be arising, etc, and also where we might use some course correction.
Some Areas of Focus
*Multi-cultural and/or intercultural contexts, including immigrant contexts
*Life transitions, including career, rites of passage, spiritual, key relationships
*Spirited and activist intersections, including themes of Hospicing & Outgrowing Modernity and Great Turning
*Neurodivergence or suspected neurodivergence, including autism and experience of increased intensity, complexity and drive (a.k.a. giftedness)
*Relational work, including relationship to self, partnership(s), and biological and/or chosen family
Training
I began training in 2012, through the Systems-Centered Training and Research Institute. My graduate studies were from 2015-2017 at Adler University in Chicago, IL. And my associate training in California included work with a focus on neurodivergence and cultural sensitivity through the Fiddleheads (nature based program) and Holistic Counseling Center at Seeds of Awareness in Oakland; a focus on children and families at Edgewood Center for Children and Families in San Francisco; and currently my work with Axis Mundi Center for Mental Health, based in Oakland.
[Coming soon: more about therapy, and therapist search tips]