I’m a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, and work with children, adolescents, and adults in my Oakland practice.

Children And Adolescents

Individual psychotherapy gives children and adolescents a private and safe space to make sense of and process their unique experiences. This is particularly important and beneficial when those experiences have been colored by disturbing thoughts or feelings, anxiety or fears, trauma, or complex sensory systems.

I offer a collaborative, exploratory, practical, and flexible approach to support children and their families. Generally speaking, we will work together to understand the meaning behind troubling, confusing, and frustrating behaviors and feelings, and help your child create new, more adaptive patterns of acting, relating, communicating, and thinking. This will generally take place during individual meetings with your child, and during additional regular parent meetings where we can track progress and I can support you with challenging parenting situations.

Adults

Psychotherapy is a deeply personal and intimate undertaking that allows us to privately express, explore, and make sense of our lives and histories. I offer a style that is down-to-earth, thoughtful, practical, and playful. Because each person seeks out therapy for different reasons and brings a complex history, I tailor each treatment to meet your unique needs, goals, strengths, culture, and preferences.

Generally speaking, our work will involve collaboratively uncovering, understanding, and re-working the current and root causes of your personal difficulties together. I will listen to you deeply and with purpose, and offer observations and insights for us to think about together. Shifting long-standing, and often unconscious patterns in this way can ultimately lead to long-lasting and deep change.

People find that depth therapy can help to facilitate a richer understanding of one’s self, emotions, and relationships, promote freedom from old patterns, traumas, and behaviors, and lead to a greater capacity to enjoy a full life.

I am a licensed clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst and work with children, adolescents, and adults. I approach each person with curiosity, thoughtfulness, and warmth, and view each treatment as its own creative and collaborative endeavor. My orientation towards therapy is psychodynamic and developmental. This means that in my work I consider relationship histories and dynamics, conscious and unconscious conflicts, culture, positions of power and systems of oppression, developmental needs and capacities, and our individual bodies and sensory systems. I am committed to social and racial justice, and strive to work in solidarity with members of the BIPOC and LGBTQIQA communities.

I am also a supervisor and faculty member at Access Institute for Psychological Services, a faculty member at the The San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, and an Adjunct Professor at the Wright Institute.

If you are interested in beginning a psychoanalysis or learning more about this kind of specialized in-depth and intensive treatment, please call me for more information.

EDUCATION

Psy.D. (Doctor of Psychology)
Clinical Psychology
The Wright Institute

M.Sc. (Master of Science)
Theoretical Psychoanalytic Studies
University College London
Psychoanalysis Unit

B.A. (Bachelor of Arts)
Comparative Literature and Theory
University of Pennsylvania

Issues I help adults with include:

• Relational difficulties

• Depression

• Anxiety and panic

• Loss, bereavement, and grief

• Familial or marital relationship problems

• Anger management

• Self-destructive or self-defeating behavior

• Phase-of-life challenges

• Questions of identity

• Trauma and PTSD

• Career concerns

• Self esteem

Childhood and adolescent challenges:

• Mood difficulties, feelings of anger, loneliness, and sadness

• Learning differences

• Autism spectrum, NVLD, and developmental disorders

• Anxieties, fears, and panic

• Social difficulties, bullying, or trouble making friends

• Life transitions such as starting or changing schools, or the birth of a new sibling

• Loss, bereavement, and grief

• Difficulties at preschool and during the preschool years

• Difficult behaviors

• Sensory integration, motor planning issues, and regulatory challenges

• Parent support