“Understanding someone’s suffering is the best gift you can give another person. Understanding is love’s other name.” -Thich Nhat Hanh

The goal of my professional life has been to understand the stories that made people the way they are. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to learn about the lives of so many: teens in foster care and juvenile hall, young adults aging out of the system, adults on Probation and trying to get out of gangs, kids in underfunded schools. I’ve seen how systems can chew people up and spit them out feeling so unwanted, unworthy, out of control, and like they don’t belong. I have sat with all kinds of trauma and strive to create a client experience that is trauma-informed, and also acknowledges the systems outside our control that play a huge role in our mental health. I opened my private practice in Campbell in September 2021 and currently teach and facilitate group therapy at Santa Clara University.

For my formal education, I attended Santa Clara University to obtain my B.S. in Psychology in 2012. After some years in the social work field, I returned to Santa Clara with a renewed passion for healing and completed my M.A. in Counseling Psychology in 2018. I integrated my experiences and passions during my clinical training with Family and Children Services’ Positive Solutions Program, where we focused on the treatment and prevention of domestic violence and re-offending in the community. My training helped me get the lengths we can go to in order to feel accepted, and that when needs are met with understanding, feeling safe, and self-compassion, profound changes can be made.

“Disarming,” I believe, is my greatest strength as a therapist. We all exist with parts of ourselves that we want to reject. It is my aim that all parts of you come into therapy to and feel respected, honored, and in the driver’s seat so that you can be open to and safe within the therapeutic process. I am primarily psychodynamic in my approach (in a nutshell: we look at how the past affects the present), but also person-centered. I use humor as well as somatic, narrative, CBT, ACT, and mindfulness techniques as needed or as desired by you, the client. I am also continually guided by my own lived experiences and path toward healing.