A Warm Welcome
This is a therapist page that covers relevant topics such as mindfulness, workplace/management issues, health and wellbeing, mood and stress, poetry therapy, relationship and communication skills, and general findings in the field of psychology. I hope that you will contribute to the discussion on these topics and share ideas that supports us all in creating happy and meaningful li
ves. I am a San Francisco psychologist and certified group psychotherapist who offers integrative psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral therapy for couples, individuals & groups. I have been practicing therapy for the past eight years and love working with people to make positive and sometimes challenging changes in their lives. With six years of experience facilitating groups from structured psycho-education and dialectical-behavioral skills groups to unstructured interpersonal process and psycho-dynamic groups, I have come to realize that it is often through our relationships that we learn about ourselves. Through this experience as well as structured training, I have become a nationally certified group psychotherapist with The International Board for Certification of Group Psychotherapists. In addition, I completed a two-year intensive training for group therapists at The Psychotherapy Institute. I completed a full-time pre-doctoral internship at the UCSF Department of Psychiatry (ranked 13th nationwide in psychiatry by U.S. News) at San Francisco General Hospital in 2007. At the hospital, I focused on individual and group therapy with trauma survivors and attended yearlong training at the Trauma Recovery Center (TRC). At the TRC, I developed a specialty in trauma and work to establish safety and emotional stabilization utilizing Lisa Najavits’ “Seeking Safety” skills and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills developed by Marsha Linehan. Prior to that, at the Marina Counseling and CIIS Psychological Services Centers, I provided psychodynamic relational therapy for individuals and couples, with an emphasis on personality styles (MBTI) and communication skills (Gottman; Bader & Pearson’s developmental model). I also facilitated and continue to lead co-ed process groups in San Francisco, focusing on interpersonal interaction, group process, self-awareness, and patterns in relationships. I worked as a management consultant for seven years, including at Bain & Company, prior to becoming a psychologist. I understand how important personal development is to professional success.
