Description (2950 characters max)
Welcome! My name is Emily/Em (they/she). I am an associate marriage and family therapist (AMFT) in the Bay Area. I specialize in helping people heal their attachments with themselves and others. I do this with individuals and dyads/groups in relationships (couples, families, polycules, systems/system members, etc.).
I center a liberation-focused approach. This means that my work is rooted in a continued commitment to radical empathy, anti-racism, decolonization, disability justice, intersectional feminism, fat liberation, gender affirmation, and de-carceral approaches.
In individual therapy, I tend to focus on emotions, body sensations, and beliefs. We work to observe troublesome experiences and/or parts of yourself from a distance in order to gain calmness, curiosity, and compassion. I tend to use modalities like Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR).
In relationship therapy, I tend to focus on emotional patterns, boundaries, and safety. I learn about how your relationship functions as a single emotional unit. Then I help you to approach difficult situations with calmness, compassion, and vulnerability. I tend to use modalities like Emotion-Focused Therapy and Family Systems Therapy.
I also tend to draw on bits and pieces from mindfulness and somatic interventions, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), and Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT).
I live in Oakland with my partner and two cats, Basil and Olive. I spend my time cycling through a million hobbies (crafting, gardening, baking, anything you could picture a grandmother doing), admiring redwood trees, caring for and being cared for by community, doing advocacy, nerding out about relationships, and enjoying media from the 90’s and 2000’s for nostalgia.
