My story-the path to becoming a licensed mental health therapist

I provide online and in person therapy for clients to help them trust themselves and develop confidence to make important life choices. I specialize in trauma therapy that helps my clients to operate based on who they want to be instead of what happened to them. I have spent my career working with people from all backgrounds. I am an LCSW therapist with certifications in third-wave cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT, DBT, ACT, and Mindfulness), and trauma-informed psychotherapy. Following college, I wanted to stay in the Bay Area to continue my work in the Oakland neighborhoods where I was born and raised. The beginning of my career was spent working for several large community mental health agencies in the San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley. In addition, I devoted time to teaching graduate level counseling psychology in the areas of trauma, brief therapy methods, and family violence prevention. I am especially proud to have been invited to contribute to the state of California's K-12 mental health curriculum. 

My first clinical internship in graduate school was at a residential facility for women experiencing substance use and interpersonal traumas. What stood out to me the most as a therapist in training at the time was that many of the women I worked with believed they were undeserving of help because of the things that happened to them in life. Some of my former clients at the time wanted support and grappled with the stigma of what it meant to accept help-weakness.

Stigma casts a long shadow, preventing so many people from accessing the support they desperately need. This fueled my commitment to creating a therapy practice where healing could flourish without judgment. We all have a past, have made mistakes, and have done and said things we're not proud of, which makes us human.

When I pivoted to running my own private practice, my goal was to help clients break through the reverberating limitations that trauma creates. While my work has often been described as "helping people to realize their dreams" by people who know me professionally, the truth is that I see my work as helping clients simply claim the right to use the tools that are available to them to change, grow, and thrive.