Depression, fear, and anxiety are among the most common, disheartening, and limiting human experiences. When lack of hope, energy, motivation, and a sense of connectedness take the joy out of life, everyday tasks can become overwhelming and disabling, making life feel like a struggle for survival rather than truly living. Even thoughts of death and dying, though distressing, are often attempts to escape and end suffering.

My solution-focused therapy offers a path to reclaim control and purpose. I guide you through the steps needed to manage burnout and fatigue, recover your intrinsic motivation, and transform these challenging experiences into a foundation for a fulfilling and meaningful life. My approach is non-pathological and non-judgmental, recognizing that your current behaviors are often creative attempts to adapt and assert control in your environment. Once you gain deeper understanding, you are empowered to make choices that serve your well-being more effectively.

Painful memories often linger after overwhelming experiences, leaving you feeling irritable, angry, jumpy, and distrustful of others and the world. You might find yourself alternating between intense anxiety and vigilance at one extreme, and deep depression and a hopeless “who cares” attitude at the other. Old, buried memories can be triggered by new events, leading to sudden shifts in mood and a disruption of your inner peace.

My solution-focused therapy provides a safe space to process these experiences. I support your journey through the grief of losing one life and guide you in building a new one, empowering you to (re)gain a sense of control over your well-being. We work to integrate these experiences, transforming their lingering impact into a foundation for resilience and renewed purpose.

Leaving your loved ones and all that you have known behind is often conflicting, confusing, and painful, even when chosen for a brighter future. You may believe you should feel happy, yet when you close your eyes, you feel sad and lonely. Where do you truly belong?

Alternatively, you may find yourself navigating a “cultural gap” between yourself and your foreign-born parents, struggling to align on values, expectations, or approaches to life. My solution-focused therapy supports your journey toward a new awareness. I guide you to meaningfully integrate the old and familiar with new circumstances. This new life is indeed an adventure, but you don’t have to navigate its challenges alone.

Moving from high school to college, starting a first or a new job, shifting from stay-at-home parenting to a career, losing or gaining friends, pets, or community through moving, separation, or death—transitions like these are inherently stressful and demanding. Not only your environment but also the rules of your life are changing, and a sense of loss and uncertainty can emerge.

My therapeutic approach provides guidance during these crucial moments. I support you in navigating the uncertainty and stress of these changes, helping you find your footing on a new path, and building a sense of stability and purpose as you move forward.

Whether you are working hard or hardly working, your job is often where you spend most of your waking hours. Though your livelihood depends on it, you likely have little to no control over your colleagues, supervisors, or work conditions. This lack of control can lead to stress piling up in your little “attic,” and before you know it, you feel flooded.

My therapeutic approach provides support to reduce this stress. We’ll work together to sort out what you can and what you cannot change, exploring when it’s time to ask for more or when it’s time to leave.

Like floating soap bubbles, we constantly gather and bounce around, merge and break apart, stand alone or flock together. Relationships are beautiful if you let them be; fine and fragile. They are ephemeral and imperfect because your very existence and wisdom are limited. Unlike bubbles, however, we often demand others fill us with meaning, warmth, love, and the sense of connection that we cannot give to ourselves. Isn’t it ironic that you think others have more of what you seek than yourself? 

My therapeutic work is to help you reject social expectations that don’t fit you and tailor your relationships to your unique values and priorities. To raise your awareness of outdated patterns of a child’s mind and refresh those patterns to fit your adult needs. Your growth begins when you stop hoping that others will read your mind and fill your cup, and start taking charge of your own needs.

Scary and beautiful, the mask can both hide your true identity and liberate your imagination to become who you want to be. This Venetian mask represents the temporary suspension of a rigid social hierarchy, allowing you to experience the thrill of exploring who you would be if freed from social limitations and the chains of your past. No more roaring of self-pity, self-degrading, powerless inner critic. Do you dare to feel free being who you are?

Perhaps important people in your life have put you down or just never felt comfortable praising you, or didn’t know how to find your strengths. Raising up another is a fine skill, but also a courageous act. Not everyone can do it.

I can show you how to dare to be who you are: to be just as good as another, or perhaps even better. No, don’t believe that when you rise, others would sink. You don’t have to hide your true identity, put yourself down to comfort others. Feeling like an imposter, that you don’t deserve to be here, is not a fact but a sense of discomfort. On a roller coaster, there’s the feel that you are falling, but you aren’t actually. You have worked hard and you belong where you are. The only thing you still need is the eyes to see that. When you put on the mask of the face you want to show to the world, your eyes will light up the mask and make who you are – real.

Emotions are your drive, your power, your energy generator. They are the ones that get the job done, but they also have the power to get you into trouble, until you learn to tame them to be your advisors. They are the ones that you can’t find when you say, “I don’t feel motivated”. They are the ones that you actively try to suppress when you use drugs or behavioral addictions.

In nature, the storm, the lightning, and the mighty waves of the ocean move you, the soon-to-be surfer – to feel sad, mad, scared, or disgusted. These are four so-called “negative” emotions that you are arguably born with, with only one so-called “positive” emotion that you experience as pleasant: joy, or pleasure.

To become the skilled surfer here who rides the waves, you’ve got to first let go of your notion of “negative” and “positive”, and that things are either “good” or “bad”. You’ve got to welcome each e-motion as your friend who literally helps you survive, build healthy relationships, overcome stress, depression, anxiety and burnout, rebuild your life after experiencing trauma, and even grow toward your ideal self and leave your unique creative mark on the world.

With the help of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and solution-focused therapy, I can help you sort out your emotions, welcome them as your BFF, and learn to consult their wisdom every moment of your life so you can make mindful, wise decisions without constantly seeking validation and approval from others.

You’ve likely heard it before: ‘You are too sensitive. You need to grow tougher skin.’ This invalidating message often comes from a family striving for cohesion, where anything different or uniquely you is perceived as a threat. When a threat is detected, defenses proceed. Shaming and blaming you for finding the family taboos is the family’s attempt to make you comply with shared values.

If you are a highly perceptive or sensitive person, little to no pressure is needed to get you feel that you don’t belong. You read between the lines. In the absence of expert guidance, you first experience your unique abilities as destructive. You don’t want to hurt others and yourself therefore you hide your strength well. Then you find life meaningless. 

I will help you accept your sensitivity and use it to navigate through life for your and others’ benefit, as you find it proper and meaningful.

Is pain shrinking your world? While physical pain inflicts real limitations on the body, the suffering you attach to it often creates unnecessary boundaries. You may find yourself pulling back from life not because you physically have to, but because of the anxiety and “safety stories” your mind has spun around the pain.

Chronic pain is not just prolonged discomfort from a known injury; often, the origin is obscure. If doctors or loved ones have suggested “it’s all in your head,” you are likely left feeling isolated, perhaps even wondering if you have a right to feel this way.

Together, we will distinguish between physical limits and psychological fears to help you reclaim your freedom. Because we meet 100% online, you get professional support without the physical toll, stress, or mobility challenges of commuting to an office. Accessible from the comfort of your home anywhere in California.

Taking care of another who can’t take care of themselves is draining your energy. Your life hangs in suspension. You are taking care because you care for that person, you love, you empathize. You may feel obligated to do so by cultural expectations or financial strain. You care so much that you forget about your own needs. But once you are drained, who’s there to continue caring? I help you find a way to stop feeling selfish for taking care for yourself, to set limits to your empathy, to see yourself as a person just as much in need as the person you are taking care of.