About Therapy
When you feel like you’re lost in the wilderness…
“What’s the point?”
You ask yourself, “Is this what I was meant for?”
“What if I make the wrong decision?” you wonder. “The decision seems so high stakes.”
If you are having trouble finding your passion, meaning, and purpose or feel paralyzed or fearful of taking your next step, don’t despair.
We can face these challenges together!
Let’s get curious about your perspective on the world!
That’s really the point of therapy!
You have so many channels of experience: thoughts, emotions, relationships, creativity, embodied experiences of emotions, and the naturally unfolding images from your unconscious.
It’s all information.
The more we connect the dots, the more you will grow in self-awareness, self-actualization, and even self-transcendence.
You’ll get out of your old frame of reference and take in the whole picture.
Exploring your mind…
There are many tools that we can use to explore the hidden force of your unconscious, which is shaping your very perspective and every decision, likely without your conscious awareness or input.
Through witnessing how your mind works in conversation, through relationships, dreams, creativity, and mindfulness of body and emotions, we can develop more clarity about your particular situation.
Therapy should be fun and playful.
It is intimidating to start a new therapeutic relationship, especially if you are new to therapy.
But therapy can really be fun! We can use creative and playful approaches, explore your inner child, find optimism in humor, and make exciting discoveries about your consciousness itself.
But it’s hard work, too.
Being with certain emotions, experiences, and memories can be challenging.
It can help a lot to do this with a seasoned professional who can offer insights, make sure you know that you’re not in it alone, and help you build coping skills.
Get ready for a fuller sense of yourself!
Especially through early relationships and traumas, we overgeneralize about the world.
We split off parts of ourselves and shove them deep down into the corners of our psyches. By exploring and reclaiming these parts and learning to love them again, we can access new perspectives and abilities to face life’s challenges.
When you expand your life’s frame of reference…
Through our work together, we can reduce your anxiety and depression, increase your ability to face challenging circumstances and help you foster meaning, purpose, and creativity.
You will see situations more clearly, rather than through an outdated lens, and be more adaptable, less thrown off center by the unexpected.
Don’t be shy… reach out and connect!
If you’re ready to make a positive change, get to know yourself better, and feel more confident in dealing with life, call or text me at (510) 995-6358.
I offer a free 20-minute consultation to ensure that my way of working is the right fit for you. I look forward to connecting with you!
About Me
I’ve always been fascinated by dreams.
When I was an undergraduate student in a personality psychology class, I started to examine my dreams to see if I could glean any insights from them.
The more I dove into the literature and my dreams, the more fascinated I became by the connections and insights that dreams had to offer.
As many others had before me, I found dreams to be a powerful tool to show me what was just out of reach of my awareness, my blind spots, and the growth processes that I was already experiencing.
I found that dreams offered both self-awareness and insights to help me grow in exactly the ways that I needed.
Some of my education and professional background…
I have a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (now Sofia University) in Palo Alto, California; a Master of Arts in Depth Psychology from Sonoma State University; and a Bachelor of Arts from Rutgers University, where I double-majored in psychology and philosophy, with a minor in religion.
I am a Licensed Clinical Psychologist in California (PSY 26445). In addition to my psychotherapy practice, I am a professor in the Master’s in Counseling Psychology program at the John F Kennedy College of Psychology at National University, where I train license-track Marriage and Family Therapists (LMFT) and Licensed Professional Clinical Counselors (LPCC). I also supervise license-track interns in their clinical training.
Previously, I was Chair of Holistic Counseling Psychology at John F. Kennedy University (JFKU), founding director of the Depth Psychotherapy Program, and Director of the Expressive Arts Therapy Program at JFKU. I have also been on faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco, California; at Sofia University in Palo Alto, California; and at the Studio for Movement Arts and Therapies in Bangalore, India.
I am a past President of the San Francisco Psychological Association and have sat on the board of directors for the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association and the Association of Transpersonal Psychology. I have published extensively in books and peer-reviewed journals and given talks internationally.
When I’m not doing therapy…
I’m a husband, a father of a young child, and we have two cuddly cats.
I love to hike, garden, and connect with nature!