About Me
I offer a holistic treatment approach based on my training in yoga, meditation, attachment theory, somatic experiencing, and Jungian psychology. I have engaged in a yearlong training at the San Francisco Jungian Institute. I have also completed the Emotion Focused Couples Therapy Externship and Core Skills. I am passionate about integrating a treatment approach that combines these treatment modalities to best support your goals for treatment. My style is relational and supportive. Clients find my therapeutic presence to be gentle, insightful, and challenging.
Prior to working as a psychotherapist, I studied social sciences. I have worked at The Refugee Development Center providing education in English language skills and supporting displaced families and individuals. I was awarded a research fellowship and studied the social justice aspects of the cotton industry and the impact of trade agreements in developing countries. I have a passion from human rights and learning how to bridge social and economic divides.
Experience and Training
- Vinyasa Yoga Instructor 400hrs
- Mindfulness Training: George Haas, SF Zen Center
- Sand Play training: Depth Psychotherapy Approach
- Gabor Mate: Harm Reduction, Trauma
- Jungian Institute: year-long training and case consultation
- Post-partum Doula Training
- Somatic Experiencing 2 year training
- Emotion Focused Couples Therapy: Internship, Externship & on-going consultation
- Sex Therapy consultation and Training
- Ester Perel: Sessions on going sex and intimacy training
Education
BA International Studies
MA Counseling Psychology
Clinical Training and Employment
Adolescent Counseling Services, Pyramid Alternatives, La Cheim Behavioral Health, Kaiser Permanente Addiction Medicine Recovery Services, The Lotus Collaborative Eating Disorder Recovery Services, Laura Firestone Group Practice, SF Sex and Intimacy Clinic
Attachment and Somatically Based Individual and Couples Therapy
Foundation of Attachment Theory
We are wired for connection. We develop strategies early in life to get our needs met in relationship with primary caregivers. These strategies are adaptive in the early years of our life as we are dependent upon caregivers for survival and getting our needs met.
Later in life adaptive strategies can become problematic as old ways of being in relationship no longer work in adult life. I want to help you understand your strategies for attachment and connection so that you can more effectively manage your emotions and build secure relationships.
Holistic Approach To Treatment
I support clients from a traditional top-down approach looking at thoughts, perceptions, identifying emotions, and behavioral patterns. I also incorporate a bottom-up approach in which we look to the body to observe sensations.
It is through this approach called somatic experiencing that I help to support the nervous system. Anxiety leads to hyper-arousal which can manifest as tightness in the chest, increased heart-rate, and shortness of breath. Depression and stress can lead to hypo-arousal, feelings of heaviness, lack of energy, tension and burnout.
Trauma can cause both hypo and hyper arousal. Trauma can saturate the nervous system and impact daily living. It is through identifying sensations and patterns in the body that we can facilitate shifts in the nervous system and move toward regulation. Shifts happen by tracking impulses, facilitating movement in the body, resourcing with positive sensations, and restructuring outcomes so that the body can have the experience it needs to have.
By tracking fight, flight and freeze patterns in the body and shifting the nervous system we form new neuropathways in the brain. New neuropatterning creates new ways of being in the world with a regulated nervous system.