My Services
Psychotherapy
I provide services for:
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*Children/Adolescents
*Adult individuals
*Families
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Sessions are usually 50-60 minutes. My fee is $130 per session.
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EMDR sessions are generally 75-90 minutes. My fee is $I80 per session.
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Insurances I take are Blue Shield & Carelon Partnership Medi-Cal. For existing clients, I take Anthem Blue Cross but no longer taking Anthem Blue Cross for new clients.
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I also have with me my ShihTzu pup, a trained therapy dog, named Osito (Spanish for 'Little Bear'). He is a hypoallergenic dog, incredibly loving and friendly. He will be joining our sessions as well. If you do not want to have Osito in the therapy space, just let me know, and we can adjust for that accommodation.
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I also work with clients in Spanish.
Areas Of Focus:
Discovering the connection between triggering events, emotional and somatic response and attachement style is very important in resolving symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress due to their coupled psychological and physiological effects. Prolonged exposure to triggering events and experiences often exacerbate the fight/flight/freeze mechanisms that can manifest into depression, anxiety and stress. Learning to interlink and synergize the psychological and physiological underpinnings of symptoms in treatment through making these connections concrete often brings relief from them, clear insight into the core issues that underlie them, and maintenance practices to remain balanced in daily life.
Trauma is an experience that is deeply distressing and disturbing to an individual, whether or not the experience was life threatening. Often times, these traumatic experiences occur during childhood (such as abandonment, abuse, and neglect) and can manifest as post-traumatic stress symptoms later in adolescence and adulthood if they are not resolved. These experiences tend to be stored in the right side of the brain, which is the non-verbal, non-linear component, as well as in the body as maladaptive physiological symptoms. Working with symbolic expression, such as expressive arts therapy and sand play therapy coupled with a somatic based therapy like EMDR, is effective to give voice to traumatic experiences that were unspeakable before as well as address and re-balance the physiological symptoms associated with trauma experiences. I work with both adults and children/adolescents and have found that these modalities lead to tremendous results.
Losing anyone and anything that is dear to one’s experience, whether through a death, divorce, relationship ending, illness, or separation from country and culture can be utterly devastating. In order to move through the waves of grief, it is vital that there is adequate and tender support for these kinds of very real and human experiences. Utilizing the creative arts can concretize the painful experiences of loss that are often times too difficult to put into words, displayed into pieces of non-verbal creative works. EMDR, and for those so inclined faith-based therapy, are both excellent ways to work with grief and loss, as it gives clients an opportunity to fully embody forgiveness and acceptance to help let go more fully and move forward with more ease.
Faithfulness can be an extraordinarily powerful element of healing when combined with psychotherapy. We all go through seasons when we experience challenging times and working with a therapist who understands how important faith is to a client, can be extremely beneficial in strengthening the therapeutic relationship. Faith-based therapy can help with finding meaning and purpose in life, making important life decisions, moving through grief and loss, healing trauma, reducing anxiety & depression, recovering from alcohol & drug addiction and resolving interpersonal conflict with loved ones just to name a few. Exploring faith concerns, including religious abuse, is given thoughtful and tender importance in one's journey. A gentle approach to deconstruction of false beliefs and reconstruction with true beliefs according to Scripture may be applied. This has proven to help many people heal through a crisis of faith due to abuse, or other unfortunate incidents, that may have been experienced in a church or by church members.
Entering into adolescence can simultaneously be an exciting as well as a confusing time for both the adolescent and parents. It is crucial that adolescents and their families have the internal as well as external resources to navigate this changeable time, so that all members of the family can stay connected as well as allow for the adolescent to find their unique way to individuate and explore who they are. Living in a culture that doesn’t acknowledge the importance of coming of age into adolescence, it feels extremely important that youth are offered the opportunity to explore this pivotal time utilizing creative arts and developing healthy routines to understand themselves more fully. The creative arts are their language, even if seemingly lost into the screens of phone and computers. Learning to access the arts and cultivate healthy routines will offer youth constructive and healthy outlets which can lay the foundation of how to navigate life for the rest of their lives.
Working with families is one of the most important aspects in improving relationships between parents, siblings, and family members. When members of the family are integrated and healthy, then the family system and its dynamics lead to long-lasting and supportive relations. I like to work from a family systems approach which means that I take into consideration that each family member is a part of a whole interconnected system of relating, each affecting the other. I also like to explore family of origin, generational patterns, and emotional relating. Working experientially with combined relational communication, EMDR, and expressive arts practices, families experience a sense of cohesiveness, mutual respect, and positive conflict resolution.
There are many stages and chapters in one’s life that can be extremely uplifting as well as difficult. Becoming a parent, starting a new job, going to college, changing careers, moving to a new city, getting married or getting a divorce, are just some of the few examples of life’s many transitions. Incorporating various resource elements like creative arts, and strengthening internal resources through resource tapping, EMDR and/or one's faith are excellent ways of supporting individuals moving through life transitions with more trust and confidence.
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Women in today’s society are experiencing higher levels of depression, anxiety and stress than ever before and more than half the women in therapy are using medications to alleviate their symptoms. As a woman, I understand and am aware of the difficulties of living in our culture: the constant barrage of gender socialization and stereotypes, sexual objectification, harassment, discrimination, prevalence of domestic violence/rape, fertility issues and post-partum depression to name a few. Any one of these experiences can devastate self-esteem and a sense of safety. The creative arts coupled with EMDR and leaning into one's faith can have the the potential for healing issues specific to women in an extraordinary way. To access these modalities is to
re-discover, re-member and heal within which can become one of the most important steps towards healing that a woman can do.
I often work with clients who are from another country or are identified with two or more cultures, which can be an enriching experience as well as an extremely isolating one. Working with immigrants, I have witnessed the powerful work of how the creative arts, EMDR and faith-based approaches can serve to support clients in accessing and fully embodying internal resources from their country of origin or identified culture as they integrate into living in the United States with more ease and confidence.
It is a tremendous gift to be able to freely express oneself through creative means and is an important feature of mental health. Often times, due to trauma, emotional wounding and stress, individuals can feel blocked when it comes to expressing themselves creatively. The use of EMDR and re-processing negative beliefs around self-expression and creativity, can help immensely to unblock the ability to create, even if for the first time. I often work with artists, musicians, and writers to support them in actualizing their creative potential by working through limiting beliefs and blocks.