About me

I am the daughter of Chinese immigrants who grew up during the Cultural Revolution and came to the United States in search for education and stability. I was born and raised in Texas around very few people who looked like me, which was challenging and also helped me understand the complexities of being an outsider. In my adolescent years, I was drawn to avant-garde art, literature, and philosophy movements because I was all about questioning the seemingly arbitrary rules that governed how things were.

Shortly thereafter, I followed the dreams of my immigrant parents and took the pragmatic route of studying business and engineering. I put myself through college, settled on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land (San Francisco), and worked in marketing and product management at technology startups. I rediscovered radical politics through racial justice movements, which challenged me to confront the ways I hold privilege and am oppressed. I became interested in how the workings of power in society define what is normal, valued, and other... and how the systems we live in impact how we relate to ourselves and others.

The way I listen to you is informed by my personal experiences as a woman of color, a child of immigrants, a mother, and a person navigating between and within cultures. In addition to being a psychotherapist, I'm an artist, activist, and plant enthusiast. I have 9 years of meditation practice in the Vipassana and Samatha traditions.

Pausing for self-reflection is an ethical practice that helps us reduce harm to ourselves, other people, and our planet.

Beyond self-care and the ability to (really) listen, the practice of doing nothing has something broader to offer us: an antidote to the rhetoric of growth. In the context of health and ecology, things that grow unchecked are often considered parasitic or cancerous. Yet we inhabit a culture that privileges novelty and growth over the cyclical and regenerative. ​Our very idea of productivity is premised on the idea of producing something new, whereas we do not tend to see maintenance and care as productive in the same way.”

- JENNY ODELL

Education and Training
My work is informed by psychodynamics, neurobiology, critical theory, family systems, and trauma-centered modalities. I engage in ongoing consultation, training, teaching, advocacy, and my own personal psychotherapy.
License 
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist #133654.

Education
​I hold an MA in Counseling Psychology from California Institute of Integral Studies with a concentration in Community Mental Health, which had an emphasis on social justice, systems thinking, and liberation psychology. 

​Clinical Work Experience
  • The Marina Counseling Center, Associate MFT (2021-current)
  • Homeless Children's Network, Associate MFT (2020-2022)
  • ​The Clinic Without Walls, MFT Trainee (2019)
  • Seeds of Awareness, MFT Trainee ​(2019)
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Current Affiliations
  • Board Member, ​Editor-in-Chief of Impulse at the Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology (NCSPP)
General Training​​ ​
Child and Family Training
LMFT #133654