Rachyl Nyoka (she/her/hers)

AMFT128985
Accepting Clients

Hello! I'm Rachyl. I’m guided to work with women of color on their journeys toward wholeness, consciousness, & spiritual fulfillment.

Associate Marriage & Family Therapist in San Diego, CA
Supervised by Alexandria Tillard-Gates

About My Clients

These are troubling times. We face unprecedented crises on multiple fronts, from ecological degradation, to global health concerns (covid-19), the visible fracturing of societal/governmental institutions, and assaults on women’s reproductive liberty/sexual sovereignty. Feelings of instability, confusion, uncertainty, and anxiety are the new normal and we don’t know how to manage them. Many of us may feel gaslighted when comparing our felt emotions/sensations with the perceived reality.

My Background and Approach

Many people come to therapy unsure of what they need & hoping that I can fix them & help them return to what they believe is “normal”. But what if it’s not you that needs fixing, but our collective ideas & understandings about what’s normal? My style of guidance is a compassionate and trauma-informed blend of radical self-inquiry, authentic expression, honest appraisal, building trust in your own intuitive guidance, and contextualization of subjective experience. I accomplish this through a blend of narrative therapy, expressive arts therapy, ecopsychology, TF-CBT, and mindfulness-based therapy.

My Personal Beliefs and Interests

Psychologist Nelisha Wickremasinghe says humans are subject to five major “curses”: memory, culture, consciousness, family, & character. Three of these (consciousness, family, & character) are immutable - we can't change our ability to self-reflect (consciousness) but we can enhance it; we can't change the social situations we're born into (family) but we can understand them; we can't change our authentic preferences/traits (character) but we can learn to value them as wholly ours. The remaining two, memory & culture, are tricky. Memory is indiscriminate, meaning we can't choose what we remember, we just do. As humans, this becomes a potent “curse” because we have the ability to relive our pain over & over. However, with practice, we can also relive pleasure & joy with the same potency. Culture, on the other hand, exists wholly outside of our subjective experience, the first seeds of which are sown in our families. And as we’ve come to see, this can result in a strange reality.

I offer online counseling in the following states:

At A Glance

  • Experience: 5 years of practice
  • Languages: English
  • Rate: $150/session

Info

Email Rachyl
5252 Balboa Ave
Suite 803
San Diego, CA 92117

Reach out to Rachyl