Hi, I’m Katherine. I am passionate about what I do. I became a therapist because I know how crippling it can feel to not be completely in control of your life and your emotions, and I just don’t feel that anyone should ever have to live that way. If you’d like to know more about my education, training, and affiliations, I have a blurb about that below, but I wanted to give you an idea about who I am and how I work.
I see therapy as a blend of art and science. I am dedicated to keeping up with the research and training in the most up-to-date strategies and techniques that really work. I work with my clients on multiple levels to help them start feeling better as quickly as possible and to keep them feeling better for a lifetime. Depending on your specific needs, for example, we might use psychodynamic therapy to determine the cause and core of your challenge and use cognitive behavioral techniques to determine and change dysfunctional thought/emotional/behavioral patterns. We might use somatic or mindfulness techniques for more immediate soothing of physical symptoms and also to actually reprogram brain circuits and change brain chemistry.
The thing is, at the end of the day, the most important factor in whether therapy will work for you turns out to be the relationship and rapport we share. Yep, it’s true! In fact, that one factor, is responsible for about 40% of the success of any therapy. Making sure that I’m the right fit for you is so important that I offer a FREE phone consultation so that we can get a sense of whether we think that fit is there. If it is, I will work collaboratively with you each week until we reach whatever goal we set together for you.
I know how scary and confusing it can be to feel overwhelmed and not know how to stop feeling overwhelmed. It stinks to feel stuck in a life that doesn’t feel completely joyful, and I love helping my clients to find new ways out of a box that doesn’t feel good and into a life that feels better physically, emotionally, and interpersonally.
My favorite part of the therapy process will be watching as you continually surprise yourself with strengths and resources that you didn’t even know you had. Through our work together you’ll discovers or re-discover the joy and passion in living the life that you were meant to live.
Call 925-322-1681 today to see how I can help!
My background and qualifications
I hold a B.A. in Psychology from U.C. Berkeley and an M.A. in Counseling Psychology with an emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy and Professional Clinical Counseling from John F. Kennedy University. In addition I hold an M.B.A. from U.C. Berkeley, Haas School of Business. I am currently working toward my doctoral degree at California Southern University. I have worked with a variety of populations including adult, child, and adolescent populations. I have worked with individuals, couples and families.
I have experience and training working in several modalities including Attachment Therapy, Psychodynamic Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Narrative Therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Neuro-Affective Relational Therapy and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy to name a few. With children and teens, I also tend to use some Art Therapy and/or Play Therapy in addition to those noted above. Normally a mixture of these modalities are used in the course of therapy based on the specific needs of the client. I work with each client to determine what modalities will fit best as any therapy will work best with the full participation of the client.
