Giulia Defant (She/Her)

LMFT #155238
Accepting Clients

Trauma-responsive, LGBTQ+ affirming therapist supporting adults and couples navigate trauma, relationships, eating disorders, and more.

Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist in Oakland, CA

About My Clients

You may understand why you struggle, yet still find yourself caught in the same patterns. I work with adults and couples navigating trauma, eating disorders, anxiety, depression, grief, relationship challenges, substance use, and life transitions. My practice is LGBTQ+ affirming and culturally responsive, with particular care for those exploring questions of belonging, identity, immigration, and connection.

My Background and Approach

With 8 years of clinical experience across residential, outpatient, and private practice settings, I bring specialized training in trauma, couples work, and eating disorder treatment. My work is grounded in psychodynamic therapy and integrates experiential and somatic approaches such as EMDR, Ketamine-Assisted EMDR (KA-EMDR), Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP), Trauma-Informed Yoga, and Ecotherapy. Rather than focusing solely on insight, these approaches allow us to work with the emotions, patterns, and nervous system responses that often lie beyond words. Whether you're navigating trauma, relationship challenges, body image concerns, or a desire for deeper self-understanding, therapy can create new possibilities for how you relate to yourself, others, and the world around you.

My Personal Beliefs and Interests

Over the years, I've come to see many of the patterns that cause us pain—anxiety, self-criticism, perfectionism, people-pleasing, disordered eating, disconnection, or substance use—as ways our systems have survived and adapted to difficult experiences. I believe many of our struggles are not simply individual problems, but responses to the relationships, systems, and conditions we navigate. As a queer, white, Italian immigrant, my lived experiences continue to shape both who I am and how I show up as a therapist. I am guided by values of inclusivity, community care, collective liberation, disability justice, Indigenous sovereignty, and environmental stewardship. When I'm not working, you'll likely find me outside, walking among redwoods, practicing yoga, and tending to relationships I cherish.

I have experience with the following
  • Agnosticism
  • Atheism
  • Buddhism
  • Christianity
  • Hinduism

At A Glance

  • Experience: 6 years of practice
  • Languages: English, Italiano
  • Rate: $150 - 200/session

Info

Email Giulia
2071 Antioch Court suite 200
Oakland, CA 94611

Reach out to Giulia