Challenges related to life transitions involve navigating significant changes or shifts in a person's life that can cause emotional distress. This can also include anticipating upcoming changes that one predicts will alter the status quo or daily routines. It's normal to experience general unease, uncertainty, and heightened stress or anxiety when embarking on an unknown journey.

These changes can encompass starting a new job, change in relationship structure, relocating to a different place, ending or starting a relationship, becoming a parent or caregiver, retiring, or beginning school. While everyone's reactions to new situations differ, we support clients by helping them cope with the associated stress, adapt to new roles or identities, and explore how these changes impact their emotions, relationships, and overall well-being.

"Interpersonal" refers to interactions or relationships between individuals. It encompasses how people communicate, behave, and engage with others in various social settings such as personal relationships, workplaces, or communities. Interpersonal skills involve effective communication, understanding different perspectives, resolving conflicts, establishing and maintaining boundaries, and fostering positive relationships. Specific examples may include recovering from harmful relationships or trauma bonding, issues related to co-parenting, high reactivity and sensitivity, conflicts between different cultures such as interfaith or interracial relationships, and healing from infidelity.

On the other hand, "intrapersonal" pertains to processes or experiences occurring within an individual's mind or self. This includes self-reflection, self-awareness, and understanding one's thoughts, emotions, and motivations. It may also be relevant to broach topics of body image as a part of relating to one’s self. Intrapersonal skills encompass introspection, emotional regulation, goal-setting, self-identity development, and building self-confidence and esteem.

Our work with clients aims to enhance their interpersonal skills, address relationship conflicts, and cultivate healthier and more meaningful connections with others. This may involve communication training, role-playing, and exploring underlying beliefs and patterns that influence relationships. We utilize Attachment and Social Learning theories to understand how individuals form and maintain relationships. For those focusing on their relationship with themselves, our approach involves developing a deeper understanding of their desires and needs, advocating for personal boundaries, and fostering a more authentic self-concept or identity.

Loss encompasses a broad spectrum of experiences beyond death, including the loss of a relationship, a sense of security, physical abilities, or personal possessions. Essentially, it involves being deprived of something valuable or meaningful. For example, we may feel a loss of purpose or identity as we age or retire through declining health, the loss of our environment or cherished items, or in our relationships, such as losing a friend, family member, community representative, infertility, miscarriage, or pet.

Grief is a natural response to loss, often involving feelings of sadness, longing, and a variety of emotional and physical symptoms. Grief can be triggered not only after a loss but also before it, in what is known as anticipatory grief. This can occur when someone anticipates a significant life change resulting in loss, such as when a loved one is terminally ill or when a job loss is expected due to company restructuring.

Bereavement specifically refers to the period of mourning and coping that follows the death of a loved one. It encompasses the emotions, rituals, and adjustments that individuals go through after experiencing a loss. Regardless of the loss you're experiencing or how long you've lived with it, we will support you by helping you organize your thoughts, express your emotions, and explore unresolved aspects to determine your needs.

Existential concerns encompass questions about the meaning, purpose, and nature of human existence. They involve contemplating fundamental aspects of life, including freedom, choice, responsibility, and the inevitability of death. These concerns can also include feelings of alienation, isolation, and the quest for personal authenticity and fulfillment. People grappling with existential issues may question their beliefs, values, and the significance of their actions in the broader context of existence.

These concerns are not limited to discussions about religion or spirituality, although they may be relevant to some individuals. For others, existential issues may revolve more around their various systems and cultural influences on their identities. These questions may become more prominent during aging, collective grief or changes within society, periods of significant loss, or life transitions, making conversations about these contextual details essential to work through.

We strive to offer a supportive and inclusive environment for individuals navigating challenges and personal growth related to their gender identity or sexual orientation, and many of our therapists identify as members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

The aim of gender and sexual-affirming mental health care is to establish a safe, validating, and empowering space where individuals can explore their identity, express themselves authentically, and address any mental health issues they may be facing.

Examples of areas we address include healing from past sexual traumas, embracing and integrating authentic, intersectional identities, establishing healthy boundaries and agreements for non-monogamous relationships, navigating the "coming out and bringing in" process, addressing eating-related concerns, managing body dysmorphia, experiencing gender euphoria and supporting individuals through transitioning and adjustment. Macro examples may include discussing socio-political issues related to one's identities and rights.

EMDR is a psychotherapy technique that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress and somatic symptoms that are the result of disturbing life experiences.

EMDR therapy is an eight-phase treatment. Eye movements (or other bilateral stimulation) are used during one part of the session. After the clinician has determined which memory to target first, they asks the client to hold different aspects of that event or thought in mind and to use their eyes to track the therapist’s hand as it moves back and forth across the client’s field of vision.

As this happens, for reasons believed by a Harvard researcher to be connected with the biological mechanisms involved in Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, internal associations arise and the clients begin to process the memory and disturbing feelings. In successful EMDR therapy, the meaning of painful events is transformed on an emotional level.

Intergenerational trauma refers to the transmission of trauma-related symptoms and behaviors across generations. It occurs when the effects of trauma experienced by one generation are passed down to subsequent generations, impacting their mental health, behavior, and overall well-being.

This type of trauma can be the result of various events, such as war, genocide, displacement, slavery, colonization, or other forms of systematic oppression and violence. The trauma experienced by one generation can influence the parenting styles, family dynamics, and cultural practices of the next generation, leading to the perpetuation of trauma-related symptoms and behaviors.

Race-based trauma refers to the psychological and emotional distress experienced by individuals as a result of racism, discrimination, or prejudice based on their race or ethnicity. This type of trauma can be caused by direct experiences of racism, such as verbal or physical attacks, as well as indirect experiences, such as witnessing discrimination or being exposed to racial stereotypes in media or society.

Race-based trauma can have a profound impact on an individual's mental health, leading to symptoms such as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and low self-esteem. It can also affect one's identity, belonging, and well-being.

Monica, Claudia, and Sahaj specialize in working with Asian Americans, transnational adoptees, children of immigrants, and first-generation immigrants. Many of our other therapists also identify as people of color. We all take an intersectional approach to trauma related to one's identity.