services &
specialties

What is therapy, anyway?

Therapy is a little like having a personal trainer for your self.

At the most basic, I share my knowledge, I tailor suggestions to your needs, I offer exercises to practice, and I give feedback on your form or point out when other habits are getting in the way of your goals. It’s not magic, and it’s hard work. But it turns out sometimes you just need an outside eye to give you perspective on how to progress.

People often come to me to help tackle a specific problem or stressful period. But we also talk about the universal challenges of life: work transitions, schooling, illness, grief, anxiety, etc.

I help my clients work on the goals they have, and I am sincere and realistic about those goals. If I really think I can’t help you with something, I will say so and do my best to connect you with other resources to get the care you need. 

Here’s a few services I offer:

Individual Therapy

Working one-on-one with people. This may be for short-term work (~6 months) helping you process a stressful period, a transition, or troubleshoot a specific skill set you’re trying to build. Or, it may be longer work to help you create and consolidate changes you want to make in your life. Therapy can be a space to clarify your values and needs, practice new relational skills, or just get a reality check.

Psychedelic Therapy

There’s a promising body of research that indicates psychedelics may be useful to assist folks in working through some conditions (such as treatment-resistant depression). The current protocol uses ketamine, already a legal anesthetic, as well as talk therapy to help folks understand and integrate their psychedelic experiences. I provide therapy as part of a care team through Doorway Therapeutics in Oakland, CA.

Psychedelics are an emergent area in therapy, and are not considered a first line of treatment. However, some people find it can help them get “unstuck” in their therapeutic work when done with care in a safe environment.

Relationship Therapy

Working with two people on their relationship. Again, this can be short term work to address a very specific skill or problem, or it can be longer work to restructure how you argue, repair from a breach of trust, or provide a relationship some attention and polish. I work with couples of all kinds regardless of orientation, including platonic dyads (roomates, metamours, queerplatonic partners, co-founders, etc.). In couples work, the focus of treatment is usually on the relationship itself, although working on the relationship often helps resolve more practical issues that arise in a partnership, and often people find it prompts their individual growth too.

Many pairs come into therapy after they’ve been suffering for a long time together—months or years. But also, some couples come into therapy when they’re doing generally fine, and want to upgrade their communication skills or give their partnership some well-deserved maintenance.

Consultation and Education

If you’re a provider and feeling like you need a queer eye on a case, I am available for consultation. My consultation rate is $200 an hour.

I’m also available as a speaker on a limited basis. Drop me a line.

Specialties

Marginalized folks

I prioritize serving people “at the edges:” multicultural folks, LGBTQ+ people, kinksters, neurodivergent folks, immigrant/first-gen kids, non-monogamous people, and trans folks, just to name a few. Of course, I see all kinds of clients, but I know how difficult it can be to access therapy as a marginalized person, so that’s my niche.

Transitions

I help people go through changes in understanding and living their gender, sexual orientation, and sexual self-concept. That might look like exploring asexuality, finding community around non-normative relationship structures, or building better skills around consent, communication, and boundaries. 

Alternative relationships

I love helping people think through and live in relationships that line up with their values better. Our cultural dialogue strongly centers monogamous, heterosexual romantic relationships as the most important way to relate to others, and yet that does not match the experience of many people. Emotional intimacy, mutual support, long-term investment and affection happen in many relationships; queerplatonic, familial, friendly, kinky, collegiate, anarchist, activist… and those connections deserve to have clear communication, healthy boundaries, and ongoing consent.

Sex therapy

While I work with clients on their priorities, my specialty is sex and relationship challenges. That category applies to a much broader variety of topics than people might realize.

Sex therapy might mean exploring transitioning and gender-related issues, it might mean troubleshooting communication, it might involve struggles with self-image, talking about intimacy with partners, understanding mismatches of desire, navigating disability, asexuality, polyamory, neurodiversity; all that good stuff.

It might also mean working with performance anxiety, exploring a kink, making peace with one’s sexual history, opening up a relationship, or simply coping with being gender-nonconforming in a pretty binary world.

Some of the topics people bring in for sex therapy:

• Desire mismatches

• Religious/cultural trauma around sexuality

• Gender and sexual identity transitions

• Exploring kink and alt sex

• Navigating non-monogamous relationships

• Sexual self-image/self-concept

• Communication for intimacy

• Navigating performance anxiety and sexual “scripts”

• Processing internalized shame and “isms” (transphobia, racism, whorephobia, anti-fat bias)

I firmly believe sexuality is a normal part of people’s lives, to engage with and consent to however suits them. There is no one true way to be sexual, and plenty of people have trouble figuring out what a good sex life looks for them. I’m here to be on your team and help tackle it, together.