Approach

For the most part our suffering isn’t random. It emerges in the gap between our deepest, often unrecognized desires and the external realities of our lives; between the person we feel ourselves to be and the way we are able to show up in the world. Feeling better isn’t a matter of willpower or of understanding, though these may help. Paradoxically, it is by respecting the wisdom in our suffering that we are able to experience less of it.

My practice is premised on the belief that even our most painful symptoms have an invaluable intelligence to them, pointing us in the direction of greater wholeness. My task is to help you cultivate the attitude and understanding necessary to hear that wisdom, and, over time, to embody it. Clients find that, through this process, experiences and emotions that previously felt unbearable become the bedrock of some of their most vital inner resources and the foundation on which they build more meaningful, truer lives. This has certainly been the case for me.

Prior to becoming a psychotherapist I spent a decade as a community organizer, and have been a student of Zen Buddhism for almost as long – two disciplines which led to and are inseparable from my clinical work. Having completed an M.A. in Integral Counseling Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, I’m currently in post-graduate training in analytic depth psychology at the C.J. Jung Institute of San Francisco. I’ve lived extensively in Zen monasteries, facilitated group therapy in a men's prison, have counseled military veterans as well as unhoused families, and am a certified restorative justice circle-keeper. I’m trauma-informed, and will be especially sensitive to the ways in which systemic forces (such as culture or class) shape your relationships to others, to yourself, and to me.

Beginning psychotherapy is a courageous step. Please reach out to get started.