In my office, you will find a safe and comfortable space where curiosity and compassion guide us towards your self-discovery and healing. Depending on your specific needs, we will shape our time together using creativity and what you already know about yourself. I respect your self-knowing and prioritize your pace and agency to guide our therapeutic dynamic and movement towards positive change.

Together we can increase your tolerance of anxiety, anger, and other overwhelming emotions and create more choices for you to feel empowered rather than stuck or reactionary. We can monitor and learn from your stress responses (fight, flight, freeze, etc.) in order to improve your communication with others, self-care, and general functioning. I can also guide you towards more self-compassion and wisdom, rooted in the body, where you can revisit and recharge when you need it.

Through our work, you’ll heal and move toward inner strength and wholeness by reclaiming disowned parts of yourself, parts you have othered or exiled, knowingly or not. We will make room for your multi-dimensionality and the intricate complexities within you. I believe in the work we can do to make peace possible for you.

I grew up Jewish and female. Neither identity fit easily within the dominant culture’s norms. My experiences of discrimination gave me a personalized understanding of discomfort and fear of people's thoughts and behaviors. The felt sense I experienced when being othered has given me an appreciation for the human struggle and has increased my capacity to feel empathy toward my fellow humans. Hence, I work from a culturally humble stance. I strive to maintain compassionate awareness of the privilege that my white skin and cisgender body give me in this racist, queer- and transphobic world. An important part of my work has come from participating for five years in The UNTraining, a local non-profit that works to consciously support people in examining their white privilege so that that privilege is less likely to seep out in actions that perpetuate pain and injustice.

• Six years as a psychotherapist with kids ages 5 to 14, servicing families at school and in home settings, as well as adults in a private practice setting
• Certificate in Process Work (www.processwork.edu), Candidate
• Focus on process-oriented psychology, a creative and attuned approach to conflict facilitation among countries, groups, family members, couples, and within oneself, with roots in Jungian psychology, quantum physics, and Taoism
• Master’s degree in clinical psychotherapy with an emphasis in somatic psychotherapy, John F. Kennedy University, 2012
• Nine years working as a certified teacher in public and private schools.
• Bachelor’s degree in psychology with a focus in creativity, Washington University in Saint Louis, 2000

With a strong foundation in somatic psychology, I strive to make our talking more engaging, healing, and useful to you by listening to your lived experience of your nervous system, body memories, mindfulness and self-awareness, movement, and five senses. A somatic approach helps us get to what is traumatizing you from the part of your brain that feels safe. Our brains change through experience of our own bodies and through relationship. I can be your guide in this journey.

I believe therapy is both about looking inward to identify areas for growth and strengths as well as rightly contextualizing our struggles within the reality of the world’s isms, trauma-perpetuating institutions, and external pressures to fit into one mold or another.

As your ally, I aim to be a caring, nonjudgmental person who is willing to sit in these fires with you, while also transforming them, and to help you build a capacity to do so on your own.

I am willing to be wrong and won’t presume to know more than my clients. I own my own stuff and have no need to be better than others. My intention is to connect authentically with people, including being attentive to your being-ness within (i.e. suchness, soul, essence). My goal is to listen to what really matters with an open mind and a curiosity about how the person affects me. With a focus on our internal worlds and our different experiences of oppression, my childhood dream to bring healing to the world continues to motivate me, one personal universe at a time.

With each year, I continue to identify my strengths and to compassionately forgive myself for missteps and past hardship. We are all resilient like this, with innate wisdom and reasons to celebrate.

• Children: 7-12
• Teens: 13-17
• Young Adult: 18-25
• Adults: 26-65
• Seniors: 65+

• Individuals
• Premarital Couples
• Couples
• Persons in Polyamorous Relationships
• Families
• Coworkers
• Other:

• Activists
• Artists
• Gender Fluid or Gender Non-Conforming Individuals
• Highly Sensitive Person/s
• LGBTQIAA+ persons
• Persons Experiencing Grief and Loss
• Persons Recovering from Traumatic Events/Experiences
• Persons with Histories of Physical or Emotional Abuse
• Other:

• EMDR
• Experiential Therapy
• Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction
• Relational Psychotherapy
• Somatic Psychotherapy
• Trauma-Informed Psychotherapy
• Other:

In-person Counseling:
I encourage clients to have sessions in-person, if at all possible. Sharing a physical space, within the same four walls and away from the demands and distractions of every day life, I find, allows people to take an easier dive into the important stuff that's not often easy to be with.

Online Counseling
I am accepting new clients for video sessions for people not in the Bay Area or for clients who are distancing or quarantining due to COVID.

Families
With age-appropriate activities and conversation, I support everyone to listen, understand, and empathize with each other in the moments when it is hardest, paving the way for a significantly improved family dynamic.

Couples
While holding a neutral perspective, I can help you improve your communication, regulate tension, and practice tools to address overwhelm, which can so easily blow the content of your disagreements out of proportion.

Kids
I want to help you have an even better time in school, at home, and with peers. We will explore your feelings by talking, playing games, doing artwork and other activities you choose.

Teens
Have you forgotten how awesome you are? Do you wish it were easier to talk with your parent(s)? People may say the teen years can really suck, but when someone you trust is always on your side encouraging you to follow your truth, they suck way less. I can be that compassionate person and have had success in building trust with teens. Mostly, I will follow your lead. In other words, what you want to talk about (or not) and what you are curious about direct our focus and attention.

• Cash
• Check
• Credit Card

$180

$175 - $130

Yes

(510) 671-0442

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3223 Lakeshore Ave, Oakland, CA. 94610

• Monday Morning
• Monday Afternoon
• Tuesday Morning
• Tuesday Afternoon
• Wednesday Morning
• Wednesday Afternoon
• Thursday Morning
• Thursday Afternoon
• Friday Morning
• Friday Afternoon

If you’d like to set up a time to talk, please call or text me- that will get you the quickest turn-around time. Email is a fine way to reach me, though it is not fail-safe. If I don’t respond right away, please provide your phone number and some times when I can reach you directly. During our 20-30-minute free consult, you will hopefully get a sense of if you’d like to give working with me a try. During that initial talk, we can also check that our schedules align.

02/29/24