My path to becoming a Marriage and Family Therapist has not exactly been linear. Before I began coursework in 2010 at the Wright Institute (Berkeley, CA) to become an MFT, I had studied German and Biology at the University of Michigan and worked for several years in biotechnology. I then taught test prep and developed a small college counseling business while I was a student of language, literacy and culture in the Graduate School of Education at UC Berkeley, where I earned a Master’s degree in 2004. I continue to guide a handful of clients each year through their college and graduate school applications.

I completed the practicum and intern phases of my MFT training at Thunder Road Adolescent Treatment Center (Oakland, CA) and The Psychotherapy Institute (Berkeley, CA), respectively. I completed the intensive post-graduate training program at the latter, which also afforded me the opportunity to work with high school students through College Track Oakland. I have been licensed as an MFT in California since 2018.

In my private practice I work to resolve moderate to severe anxiety, depressive and other common “disorders” for adolescents and adults and to strengthen emotional connections and manage conflicts for couples and families representing a diverse range of racial, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds as well as gender and sexual identities.

I prefer a flexible, collaborative approach. My work is informed in different ways by psychodynamic, existential/humanistic and developmental psychologies; feminist/queer and social justice oriented theories; Cognitive Behavioral (CBT) and Dialectical Behavior (DBT) Therapies; as well as more psycho-educational and behavioral frameworks.

I view psychotherapy through a whole-person-in-social-context lens and strive to develop a vibrant, compassionate and curiosity-driven therapeutic alliance, expecting this relationship to evolve over time. Because I attend to both cultural differences and individual strengths, I tend to work a bit differently with each client.