Child & Teen Therapy
Play-based and relational work for children, and honest, non-condescending therapy for adolescents. The therapist supports parents in understanding and relating to their child.
Child & teen therapyPsychotherapy in San Francisco, California
Depth therapy across the lifespan.
We are a group practice working with children, teens, adults, couples, and groups. We work with what sits underneath a symptom rather than only the symptom itself: why the same patterns keep finding you, and how they change once you understand them.
In person in San Francisco · Telehealth across California
Who we work with
Find the right kind of support.
Group Therapy
The patterns you have in relationships tend to show up in a group, live, where they can actually be worked with.
Group therapyAdults & Couples
Adulthood presents unique challenges, whether you are grappling with new pressures or seeking deeper fulfillment. We work on the power you have to change what can be changed.
Adults & couplesWhat we have found
Understanding arrives long before change does.
Many people arrive already knowing a great deal about themselves. You can name your attachment style, you have read the books, and still you find yourself in the same argument, the same job, the same silence at the dinner table.
This is true at every age. A young child often knows she gets angry when she feels left out and still cannot do anything differently. An adult can describe a marriage in fine detail. Understanding alone rarely moves any of us very far.
In a session the old feeling arrives in real time, with someone right there paying attention. Something you have only ever gone through alone is now happening in company, and that is what starts to loosen it.
That only works if you trust the person you are working with. The relationship you build is often the first one in which an old pattern gets a different ending. That is as true in the playroom as it is in later life, which is why we work with children and teenagers, adults and couples, and families.
Our approach
Psychodynamic depth, gestalt presence.
Psychodynamic therapy takes seriously that the past is still operating in the present. We look at what formed you, what you learned to do to survive it, and how those adaptations became the thing now getting in your way.
In gestalt therapy, the work is what is happening in the room, right now. Not just the story of the argument you had last week, but what your body does as you tell it, and what happens between us as you do.
A fuller account of the problems we treat, from anxiety and depression to trauma and grief, is set out on its own page.
Cultural frame
Your background is not a footnote to the work.
Culture, race, immigration, class, faith, language, gender, and sexuality are not topics we get to at the end if there is time. We treat your culture as central to understanding what you bring to therapy.
Getting started
Starting is simpler than it may feel.
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One
Call us
Reaching out for yourself or your child is a big step, and the first conversation is a small one. Fifteen minutes on the phone, in which you tell us what has been going on and what you are hoping for. There is no paperwork at this stage.
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Two
We find the right fit
We talk together as a team about who here is best suited to what you have described, considering each clinician's specialty, their availability, and who we think you are most likely to feel understood by.
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Three
You begin
A first session with that therapist. The early weeks are mostly about getting to know one another and finding a pace that suits you. You decide how quickly things open up, and nothing has to be said before you are ready to say it.
What guides us
How we work as a practice.
We think together
You are not choosing a therapist who works alone. Our clinicians meet regularly to support each others’ work, so the person you sit down with has a whole practice behind them.
We follow you
We do not work from a protocol or a set sequence of skills. Sessions follow where you take them, and whatever turns up on the way is material: play, memory, or what is happening in the room in the present.
Access matters
We hold a number of reduced-fee spots across the practice. If cost is a concern, please ask on the first call and we will tell you plainly what is open.
Where we are
Therapy in San Francisco and across California.
Our office is at 1934 Divisadero Street in Lower Pacific Heights, San Francisco. We welcome clients from Pacific Heights, Japantown, the Fillmore, Laurel Heights, Presidio Heights, Cow Hollow, and the Marina, and we are within easy reach of the Divisadero, Fillmore, and California Street corridors.
If you live further afield, or would simply rather not travel across the city, we offer secure video therapy to anyone located in California.
We offer individual therapy, therapy for children and adolescents, couples counseling, and ongoing therapy groups, so there is somewhere to begin at whatever stage you or your family are in.
Take the next step
A first conversation costs nothing but a phone call.
Call us and we will talk through what you are looking for, answer your questions about how we work, and help you find the therapist on our team who fits. If we are not the right place for you, we will tell you that too, and point you somewhere better.
(510) 423-3205