Welcome.

My work is pragmatic, warm, and deeply respectful of the complexity of human experience.

I aim to bring compassion without avoiding what is difficult; to stay present-focused without forgetting the long shadow of history, trauma, family, and culture; and to value the practical without reducing life to symptoms, coping strategies, behavior management, or a list of achievements.

I believe in individual agency and responsibility, while deeply appreciating the impact of relationships, culture, and larger systems.

Our work is grounded in the realities of daily life, while making room for your complex inner world: vulnerabilities, anxieties, deep longings, lifelong dreams, and the fuller humanity beneath them.

My work with you goes beyond the traditional "talk therapy" and

is always

EXPERIENTIAL, RELATIONAL and COMPASSIONATE.

EXPERIENTIAL

Accessing and working with verbally and nonverbally with the full range of our experiences - not just thoughts but also feelings, somatic signals, memories, beliefs systems, impulses and urges, and so on. Read more here about the experiential approach.

RELATIONAL

the awareness of and the ability to be present and to hold and work with the multiple complex and dynamic systems that have impacted the client: conflicted or fragmented internal parts, organizing beliefs, family systems and core relationships, cultural/societal systems, habitual patterns, and therapist-client relationship.

COMPASSIONATE

a prerequisite, a condition for working experientially, because we will be privileged to work constantly and closely with the vulnerabilities, the complexities, the conflicts, the ambiguities, the unsolvable problems, and all the beautiful and painful human conditions

These qualities have shaped my therapeutic philosophy and helped me integrate and utilize my in-depth trainings in multiple psychotherapy approaches and the many, many tools I have to help you. They also are informed by the psychotherapy research and wisdom including:

SYSTEMS THEORY explores and understands individual experiences in the relational context, from the different parts within a person to couple-hood, family system, community and larger societal and cultural contexts. I also seek to understand these experiences in a client's developmental context and their multigenerational family history. Some of the essential questions are: what identities/needs/roles do these different parts have? how do these different parts interact? what are some of the repetitive patterns? how have patterns maintained over time? Luckily, unlike machines, a living organism - individuals or families or societies - has the innate drive and wisdom to re-organize toward self-healing and growth.

ATTACHMENT THEORY is focused on the relationships and emotional bonds between people. It holds that attachment needs are fundamental to our lifelong wellbeing, and no matter what your "attachment style" was/is, you have an innate capacity for and can learn to develop secure, healthy adult relationships. In therapy, not only we will discover, identify and access a client's particular pattern of barriers to secure attachment but also make use of experiential opportunities to develop and practice secure attachment in the here and now. Attachment theory and systems psychology collectively tell us that human beings are first and foremost relational beings and that our experiences are always relational, whether in the form of the pain of isolation, the joy of community, the numbness of cut-off parts or the confusion and conflict of fragmentation and relational discord.

HAKOMI MINDFUL SOMATIC PSYCHOTHERAPY believes that a person can gain an understanding of themselves that is not just the conscious, intellectual knowledge, but is the awareness of the deeper self that includes beliefs, nervous system patterns, memories, images, emotions and attitudes about self and the world. My goal as your therapist is to assist you in fully experiencing the liveliness in all these dimensions, discovering and exploring such core material and transforming what was once adaptive and essential but is now self-limiting and maladaptive, to allow more freedom and satisfaction in life. This work is based upon and guided by the Hakomi principles of mindfulness, organicity, non-violence, mind-body holism and relational unity. As a Certified Hakomi Therapist (CHT), I seek opportunities to practice and embody these principles in my personal life, which is the only way for my authentic self to be present with you in our work together. (Checkout some of my blogs on Hakomi)

"Great marriages aren’t about clear communication – they’re about small moments of attachment and intimacy."

– John Gottman

"Listen to that part of you that can't think. Perhaps it will tell you more about yourself."

- Greg Johanson and Ron Kurtz, in "Grace Unfolding: Psychotherapy in the Spirit of the Tao-te ching" (1991)

The Practice of Self-Compassion

Self-compassion is one of the most important skills I help clients cultivate in psychotherapy. In many ways, I believe it is essential if we want to make deep and lasting changes in our lives. If you choose to work toward meaningful psychological change, you will inevitably stumble at times. Therapy asks us to stretch beyond familiar ways of coping and relating, so by definition, you will encounter moments of being triggered, experiencing setbacks, feeling discouraged, and so

May 114 min read

Stories and Fictions for Children and Teens about Changes and Transitions

Over the years, I've gathered some stories and books about changes and transitions in life, big or small, for young kids and adolescents. These are NOT how-to books, but story/fiction books. I find that the how-to books tend to send readers into their head, but stories and fictions - just like music, movies, etc. - draw our emotions and allow the readers a place to feel and be with feelings. Sometimes it's hard for kids to "talk" about their difficult experiences, but books

Mar 31, 20245 min read

Competing Devotions: Working with Families and Social "Norms"

The Competing Devotions for the Driven Parent: The Impossible Tension of the Ideal Worker Norm and the Intense Parenting Norm Many clients who come to see me for psychotherapy are parents or plan to become parents one day. I also see children who are living in conflict and tension with their parents. The stress and challenges of work and the stress and challenges of parenting are among the top reasons that bring people to therapy or later emerge to account for a signific

Mar 30, 20248 min read

Nonviolent communication

I learned from Marshall Rosenberg 's nonviolent communication workshops some year ago that giraffes have the largest hearts of all land animals. According to Rosenberg, "giraffe language" is a language of feelings, needs and requests and nothing else. And with giraffe ears, you can only hear feelings, needs and requests; you never hear complaints, blames, criticisms, accusations, defenses, demands, etc. Pretty cool, ah? Unfortunately, many of us didn't get K-12 giraffe

Mar 4, 20242 min read

Hakomi: The study of the "organization of experiences"

In Hakomi founder Ron Kurtz's words: "Two entirely different processes determine what each of us experiences. One is what is actually happening around us and the second, the habits that convert these events into information, up the levels of the nervous system into progressively more complex, organized gestalts, and finally into consciousness. The lower, sensory levels are not usually problematic for psychotherapy. It is at the levels of meaning and feelings that the conversi

Mar 2, 20244 min read

Introducing "Hakomi"

When I started to “Hakomilize” my psychotherapy work a few years ago, I knew there would be no going back. Exquisitely positive, warm and gentle, Hakomi - the beloved short name for " Hakomi Mindful Somatic Psychotherapy ," is so extremely fine at tracking and identifying the individually unique accessing routes to each client’s unique experiences, at evoking their organizing patterns and at reconstructing the core organizing materials deep down. Many psychotherapy approaches

Mar 2, 20242 min read

First Step: How to Choose the Best Therapist for YOU

This article provides some basic information about the different types of providers as well as what to look for in evaluating a...

Oct 1, 20211 min read