Frequently Asked Questions & List of Services

I have over twenty years of experience working with children, teens, adults, elders, and families. My private practice is primarily focused on working with adults who are experiencing grief (with a specialty in post-suicide loss). I am a Certified Advanced Grief Counseling Specialist, EMDR Trained, and as such I work with clients experiencing a variety of different losses. I have the ability to hold a sacred space for some of the most difficult stories that are told and to be a place where you can depend on sharing those stories, when there may be no other area of your life where you can do so as candidly.

I specialize in grief, both anticipatory and post-death. I have a special interest in suicide loss grief. My other specialty area is EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) as well as working with individuals regarding any number of life stressors. I work primarily with adults.

My primary therapeutic approach is humanistic therapy, though I individualize my approach based on the client’s needs. According to WebMD, “Humanistic therapy adopts a holistic approach that focuses on free will, human potential, and self-discovery. It aims to help you develop a strong and healthy sense of self, explore your feelings, find meaning, and focus on your strengths. The therapist acts as a non-judgmental, respectful listener who guides the therapeutic process.” Thanks, WebMD, I agree!

My other main approach, which I use often in grief work, is narrative therapy. Narrative therapy is a style of therapy that helps people become—and embrace being—an expert in their own lives. In narrative therapy, there is an emphasis on the stories that you develop and carry with you through your life. In grief work, narrative therapy, and its focus on reconstruction, can allow a bereaved individual to make sense of their loss, and build a narrative around that loss that allows them to move with the grief they are suffering and create a “new normal” based on a new narrative and a new reality of their life after such a loss.

Overlaying both of these approaches is my EMDR training, which helps us to understand how we have arrived at the stories we have developed about ourselves, and seeks to reprocess maladaptive or damaging beliefs and narratives that have resulted from unprocessed experiences in our lives.

EMDR therapy, which stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is a psychotherapy technique that involves recalling a traumatic memory while simultaneously focusing on a back-and-forth external stimulus, like eye movements, to help reduce the emotional charge associated with that memory and facilitate healing from trauma or other distressing experiences; essentially, it aims to "reprocess" the memory by allowing the brain to process it in a new way. We can discuss if this therapy method might be useful in addressing your symptoms, and at that time I can provide you additional information and resources to explore to see if EMDR is right for you.

Therapy is such an individual experience, and the right therapeutic fit between a client and therapist can literally be the vehicle to move the work forward. Though I have seen a wide range of people during my career, the following types of individuals are my current priority:

• Anyone struggling with grief.
• I prioritize clients who have suffered a loss through suicide.
• An adolescent or adult client who is a voluntary client (and not just coming to therapy because their parents made them!). This client should be interested in engaging in change or motivated to attend therapy to receive support. Although I do see adolescents, my after school availability is limited, and therefore I primarily see adults.
• Clients who are invested in the process of therapy, and willing to commit to a possible long-term working relationship, rather than short-term therapy, such as Solution-Focused or other types of Brief Therapy approaches.

My fee is $210 for a 50-minute session. 

No, I currently do not accept insurance, though I am happy to give my clients a superbill so that they may seek reimbursement through their insurance company.

I use Ivy Pay, a session payment system for therapists that is HIPAA protected and encrypted. I will charge the credit card on file on the morning of your session. Should you need an alternative to this type of payment system, I accept PayPal, Venmo, cash, and checks.

I do not currently accept sliding scale or pro bono clients due to my limited availability.

I offer both. My office is in downtown Oakland at 329 A 14th Street Oakland, Ca. 94612. I ask that clients refrain from attending in person if they are experiencing any symptoms of covid. If in-person appointments are not ideal, I do offer online sessions.

Potential clients should book a 30-minute free online or phone consultation, where we can both meet each other and determine if we are the right fit. During this call, you can explain your current needs, hopes, and reasons for seeking therapy. If you are the parent/caregiver of a minor client, please note that it would be ideal for them to join for the last 15 minutes. However, if schedules do not allow for this, please be sure that they are willing participants in therapy. I do not accept minor clients who are not in agreement with seeking therapy.

Therapy is such an individualized process that I cannot answer this question without meeting you, determining your needs, and having a period of time where we meet together in order to see how our working relationship progresses. I do consider myself a therapist who works with long-term clients and have working relationships with many of my clients that have extended beyond a year.

You and I can determine a therapy frequency that works best for you. Most of my clients see me either weekly or every other week.

Although this is also very individualized, we should be continually discussing if you feel that you are benefiting from our work together, if I feel that you are being well served by me, or if referring you out to another therapist (or ending our work without another referral) is the best option for you. The other condition under which we should end our work together is if you feel that you have progressed to a degree in the work that regular therapy is no longer needed. Once we have determined that it is time to end our work together, I would highly recommend one to four termination sessions. We will determine the termination needs and process together, as will always be the case in our work together.