Services
About My Clients
My clients are adults who grew up navigating two worlds, two languages, and two versions of themselves. They carry the particular weight of immigrant family expectations — the pressure to succeed, to be grateful, to not need too much. Many have spent years putting everyone else first and are only now learning to put themselves in the room. They come with anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. They leave with language for what they've always felt.
My Background and Approach
I am a multilingual Filipino-American Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and an official external provider for faculty and staff at UCSF and UC Berkeley. I bring sixteen years of clinical experience and a multicultural framework that honors each client's cultural context rather than measuring them against Western-default standards of emotional expression. I believe empathy is not just a therapeutic tool — it is the foundation of the cure. In April 2026, I presented "Empathy in Therapy: The Foundation of Cure" to psychologists and postdoctoral fellows at UCSF. My paper on multicultural empathy frameworks is currently under peer review at the Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development. My approach integrates CBT, psychodynamic therapy, and solution-focused work, always tailored to the individual. I practice with cultural humility, trauma-informed care, and the deep conviction that every person deserves to be met exactly where they are — without judgment, without condition,
My Personal Beliefs and Interests
I believe that healing is not a destination — it is what happens when a person finally feels safe enough to tell the truth about their own life. I come to this work not just as a clinician but as someone who has lived it. I am a Filipino immigrant who has navigated two countries, two cultures, and the particular grief of loving a family across a language gap. I know what it means to carry things that don't have easy words in either language. I know what it costs to keep carrying them alone. I believe change is possible for everyone — not because I was trained to say so, but because I have watched it happen in my own life and in the lives of the people who have trusted me with their most honest moments. I do not believe in fixing people. People are not broken. I believe in sitting with someone long enough, and honestly enough, that they begin to remember who they were before the world told them who to be. That is the work. And I am honored every single day to do it.