Life can be challenging sometimes, and it can feel vulnerable to seek help and support. I understand this because I’ve been there myself.

Whatever you are going through, you don’t have to do it alone. We can meet where you are together and explore how the pain, uncertainty, or challenge you are facing might also become an opening toward greater self-understanding, healing, transformation, and freedom.

The People I Work With

I hold a particularly compassionate place for people who have felt silenced, misunderstood, or as though they don’t quite belong. Many of the people I work with are sensitive, thoughtful, introspective people who have struggled with harsh inner critics or painful ideas about who they are.

I have experience working with social anxiety, general anxiety, depression, trauma, emotional regulation, body image concerns, low self-esteem, grief, and the effects of bullying, emotional or physical abuse, and neglect. An important part of my work is helping people find greater freedom from oppressive self-images and begin developing a more compassionate and authentic relationship with themselves.

Social anxiety, shyness, and sensitivity have been particular areas of interest throughout my work as a therapist. I have co-facilitated a therapy group for people struggling with social anxiety, shyness, and sensitivity, and group work in this area is something I may offer again in the future.

My Approach to Therapy

My approach is warm, intuitive, creative, and deeply relational. I see therapy not simply as a way of reducing symptoms, but as an opportunity to understand ourselves more deeply and to discover ways of living that feel more authentic, meaningful, and alive.

My therapeutic perspective is holistic and informed by experiential, somatic, depth-oriented, attachment-based, and evidence-based approaches. My work draws especially from Gestalt therapy, transpersonal psychology, Jungian and psychodynamic perspectives, Internal Family Systems, Emotion Focused Therapy, Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP), mindfulness, somatic approaches, and the Enneagram.

I am interested in the whole person—not only in what has happened to us, but in how our histories live in our bodies and relationships, the ways we have learned to protect ourselves, the meaning we make of our lives, and the parts of ourselves that may be waiting to be rediscovered.

My practice is inclusive, queer-friendly, and sex-positive. I have worked with people from many different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, ages, identities, and sexual orientations, and I welcome diversity of all kinds.

Creativity, Nature, and the Inner Life

Nature has always been an important part of my own life, and I continually draw upon its wisdom in my therapeutic work. I am interested in the ways the natural world can help us remember rhythms and ways of being that are sometimes difficult to hear amid the demands of everyday life.

I also have a long relationship with meditation and contemplative practice. When it is meaningful and appropriate for the person I am working with, I enjoy helping people explore their inner lives and develop greater access to a sense of natural self, meaning, and purpose.

I am also a musician, and creativity is an important part of how I understand human flourishing. I deeply enjoy helping people discover and express their own creative potential—whether that takes the form of art or music, or simply the courage to inhabit their own lives and express themselves more fully.

Cultural Background and Identity

I was born outside of the continental United States and come from a multicultural family with an immigrant background. My own experience has given me a personal understanding of some of the complexities that can arise from living between cultures, languages, identities, and different ways of seeing the world.

I am bilingual and provide psychotherapy in both English and Spanish.

Proveo terapia en español.

My Training and Clinical Background

I received my Master’s degree in Integrative Counseling Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). I was drawn to CIIS because of its uniquely holistic approach to psychology and its integration of Eastern and Western traditions of understanding the human experience.

My clinical training and continuing education have included extensive study of Gestalt therapy, transpersonal psychology, experiential and depth-oriented psychotherapy, and Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP), along with training in other approaches that continue to inform my work.

I have been affiliated with the Bay Area Gestalt Institute since 2015, where I have continued to train and practice as a Gestalt therapist.

I am also a longtime student of the Diamond Approach, a contemplative path influenced by Sufi wisdom and other spiritual and psychological traditions that explores self-awareness, presence, and essential truth. My own contemplative study informs the way I understand human experience, while therapy itself remains grounded in each individual client’s beliefs, values, and way of making meaning.

Nature, Animals, and Equine-Assisted Therapy

My love of nature also led me to train and work in equine-assisted therapy at Zenerosity, a nonprofit organization where I had the opportunity to experience therapeutic work alongside horses.

Horses are remarkably sensitive relational animals. As prey and herd animals, they are highly attuned to subtle changes in their environment and in the beings around them. Working with horses offered a powerful way of experiencing how much can be communicated outside of words—through the body, relationship, boundaries, presence, and responsiveness.

My experience with equine-assisted therapy continues to inform my work as a psychotherapist. It deepened my appreciation for embodiment, nonverbal communication, relationship, and the capacity of animals and the natural world to help us encounter ourselves differently.

Why I Became a Therapist

More personally, my own healing and transformative journey is what made therapy a deep calling in my life.

I know what it is like to need support, and to experience how another person’s presence can help us find our way through a period that once seemed impossibly dark. My own experience of healing profoundly changed the direction of my life. Through that process, it became increasingly clear to me that this was the work I felt called to do.

There is something deeply meaningful to me about accompanying another person through the places in life where they feel lost, frightened, ashamed, uncertain, or disconnected from themselves—and witnessing what can emerge when those places are met with curiosity, compassion, honesty, and relationship.

I approach that work with humility. I don’t believe a therapist possesses the answers to another person’s life. Rather, I see therapy as a relationship in which we listen carefully together for what is asking to be understood, healed, reclaimed, or allowed to emerge.

It remains a privilege for me to share with others some of the healing, freedom, and empowerment that I have also been fortunate enough to receive.

Therapeutic Approaches

• Gestalt Therapy

• Transpersonal Therapy

• Jungian and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

• Internal Family Systems (IFS)

• Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP)

• Emotion Focused Therapy

• Somatic Therapy

• Mindfulness and Contemplative Approaches

• The Enneagram

• Ecotherapy and Nature-Informed Therapy

I also offer consultation for licensed therapists and associates who are interested in deepening their clinical work, particularly around experiential, Gestalt, transpersonal, existential, and spiritually integrated approaches.

If you are considering therapy and would like to get a sense of whether we might be a good fit, you are welcome to contact me for a free 15-minute consultation. I would be glad to hear from you.