Helping You Feel Free Again.
Hi! I’m Sam.
I provide therapy and counseling to individuals struggling with shame, addictive patterns or relationship issues in the heart of San Francisco.
We will explore the coping skills that can help you navigate life with more ease and less anxiety.
I also help couples to process emotions, improve communication and resolve conflict patterns.
I take a relational, here and now, direct approach to exploring unmet needs and improving self-esteem, through a client-centered lens that prioritizes discovering the freedom to be yourself.
You might experience heightened sensitivity in your nervous system due to relationship burdens or work stress that can lead to substance use and other unhelpful coping strategies.
You feel stuck in the same patterns, persistent worry and pressure about how things will change. Work-life balance is a struggle (or nonexistent) and it is affecting relationships and even your self-esteem, even despite the wins. This feeling might pervade your life, affect your sense of self-worth, and can make it difficult to voice your needs and wants, or even to identify what they are to yourself.
You might find yourself thinking:
"What if I never find my purpose?"
"What if I'm not able to live a fulfilling life?"
"What if I stay stuck in the same toxic relationship and never find a fulfilling partnership?"
"I have no idea how to love myself but everywhere I look, it seems like that's required."
"I can't stop a habit I know is hurting me and I don’t know what to do."
You figure out hard things all the time because you get things done, but when it comes to this, you end up feeling stuck, lost and frustrated. You deserve to feel free of these worries; you deserve to feel ease and contentment. Joy even!
What's at stake if you don't take action is the situation getting worse. Your self-esteem continues to decline, motivation you may have had dwindles, perhaps you seek validation in the wrong places. Behaviors that used to help stop working. Relationship troubles continue to diminish your self-worth. And you get further away from a connection to yourself in the process.
You can keep trying to "figure it out" on your own; but if you reach out, things can start to get better.
I can help--you don't have to do it alone.
I know what it is like to feel stuck, like things will never change despite your best efforts. My life's work centers around helping people untangle the parts of life that feel overwhelming, while finding freedom and purpose in the process. I know how to help people feel hope again.
I also know how hard it can be to reach out and get started with a new therapist. I have walked many people through this process and promise to make your next steps as stress-free as possible.
I am so glad you made it here, and I want you to know you don't have to figure this out on your own. You can start feeling better today.
Substance Use
Sometimes the difference between dependence and coping is unclear. Whether you are struggling to define or change your relationship with substances, screens, or distressing behaviors, you don’t have to do it alone.
Relationship Issues
Many of us have never learned where we end and others begin. Codependency, lack of boundaries and people-pleasing behaviors can cause a lot of pain.
I can help you to explore how to stay connected to your sense of self, in relationship.
Self-Worth
I help people figure out what's important to them, in order to feel more fulfilled and happy; even when things are tough.
This work may be for you if you wish to:
Understand your attachment style and how it affects current relationships
Feel more understood and regulated in communication with others
Explore and heal shame
Alter your inner dialogues about love, sustenance, need, attachment
Understand what "self-care" means for you and do the things that make you feel truly good
Explore your relationship with alcohol, marijuana, or any drug or behavior that might feel a bit more compulsive than you’d like (including but not limited to: screen time, food, shopping, gambling and sex).
Explore and define a relationship with spirituality in your life