Lafayette Therapist
for Adults & College Students
In person in Orinda (minutes from Lafayette).
Online throughout California.
Relational, depth-oriented therapy for anxiety, life transitions, self-esteem, and relationship patterns.
When Expectations Begin
to Feel Like Pressure
Taking care of things. Showing up for your family, your work, your community. Keeping the calendar running. Knowing what everyone else needs before they ask. From the outside, it looks like you have it together — and you do, in all the visible ways.
But there’s a version of you that nobody really sees.
The one who lies awake running through tomorrow’s list when everyone else is asleep. The one who’s been quietly exhausted for longer than you can track. The one who wonders, without quite saying it out loud, whether this is all there is, or whether you’ve somehow lost yourself inside a life you built exactly right.
That feeling deserves attention. Not later, when things slow down. Now.
Lafayette Is a Community
That Runs on Giving
Lafayette is a place built around connection — strong schools, involved families, a community identity rooted in showing up for others. The Lafayette Reservoir. ACALANES. Youth sports. PTA. Neighbors who know each other.
All of that can be genuinely rich. It can also be quietly exhausting.
In a community where the standard is high and everyone seems capable, it can feel almost impossible to admit that you’re not okay. That the busyness is covering something. That underneath the competence and the community ties, you feel invisible in a way you can’t quite explain.
Many of the people I work with look, from the outside, like they’re thriving. On the inside, they’re stretched thin, self-critical, and not sure who they are beneath everything they do for other people.
The Particular Weight of
Doing Everything Right
There’s a pattern I see often in people from Lafayette and the Lamorinda area — and it runs deeper than stress.
It’s the person who has spent years prioritizing everyone else’s needs so automatically that they’ve stopped registering their own. Who puts enormous pressure on themselves to perform, to manage, to not burden anyone. Who can articulate exactly what’s wrong in their life and still can’t seem to move it.
Sometimes it shows up as anxiety that won’t quiet, even on a good day. Sometimes as a low-grade numbness, not depression exactly, more like emotional distance from your own life. Sometimes as a transition: the kids are leaving, or a career chapter is ending, or a relationship has quietly shifted, and suddenly the structure that organized everything is gone.
These aren’t small things. They’re the kind of things that deserve more than another coping strategy.
What Therapy at Bountiful Health Actually Looks Like
My approach is relational, depth-oriented, and trauma-informed.
That means I’m not focused on symptom management or giving you tools to get through the week. I’m interested in what’s underneath, the emotional patterns that formed over time, the ways you learned to adapt that made sense once and may not be serving you anymore, the places where you’ve stopped being able to hear yourself clearly.
This work isn’t about becoming a different person. It’s about getting underneath the roles and the pressure long enough to find out what’s actually there.
It tends to take real time. And it tends to change things in a way that lasts.
Therapy Options in Lafayette and the East Bay
Getting to the office
My office is located at 23 Altarinda Road in Orinda — a short drive from Lafayette via Highway 24, with easy parking and no BART required. For most Lafayette clients, it’s a five-to-ten minute commute.
In-person sessions are available for adults who want the particular quality of presence that comes from meeting face-to-face.
Online Therapy Throughout California
For clients who prefer flexibility, or who want to avoid carving another commute into an already full schedule, I offer secure online therapy to anyone in California.
Online sessions work well. The depth of the work is the same. Many clients in Lafayette find that being able to meet from home, during a lunch break or between school pickup and dinner, is actually what makes therapy sustainable.
If the logistics of getting somewhere one more time a week are part of what’s kept you from starting, that doesn’t have to be the obstacle.
Offerings
Support for adults and college students navigating:
Anxiety & Depression: Including high-functioning anxiety that looks like drive and competence from the outside, and the kind of low mood that doesn’t feel dramatic enough to name.
Relationship & Boundary Patterns: People-pleasing, difficulty asking for what you need, giving more than you’re receiving, patterns in relationships that repeat despite your best efforts.
Self-Esteem & Inner Critic: The voice that critiques everything you do, the sense of not being enough even when the evidence says otherwise.
Life Transitions: The disorientation of an empty nest, a career shift, a relationship change, or any moment when the structure that organized your life has moved.
Midlife Transitions: The particular grief and identity questions that come with midlife, including the ones nobody talks about.
Therapy for Young Adults & College Students: For the 20-something who left Lafayette for college or a first job and is quietly struggling with what comes next.
Is This the Right Fit?
This work tends to be a good fit if:
You give a lot — to your family, your work, your community — and there’s not much left over for yourself
You understand your patterns intellectually but can’t seem to change them
You appear capable on the outside and feel something different on the inside
You want depth, not another list of things to try
You’re in a life transition and don’t quite know who you are in this next chapter
It’s also worth saying directly: you don’t need to be in crisis. Many of the people I work with aren’t. They’re simply carrying something for long enough that they’re ready to put it down and actually look at it.
Frequently Asked Questions
-
Yes. My office at 23 Altarinda Road in Orinda is a short drive from Lafayette — most clients are there in five to ten minutes via Highway 24. There’s easy parking and a private, quiet entrance. Many Lafayette clients also choose online sessions, either exclusively or when scheduling makes in-person less practical.
-
Either works. Online therapy is available throughout California and offers the same relational, depth-oriented approach as in-person sessions. If you’d prefer the flexibility of meeting from home or want to avoid adding another drive to your week, that’s a real option — not a compromise.
-
The most common concerns are anxiety. Often high-functioning anxiety that looks like busyness and competence from the outside, alongside the exhaustion that comes from always prioritizing others, difficulty with boundaries, low-grade disconnection, and life transitions like an empty nest, career changes, or identity shifts in midlife. Many clients describe a feeling that something is off that they can’t justify, given how much they have.
-
No. Most of my clients aren’t in crisis. They’re carrying something that’s been present long enough that they’re ready to look at it. A persistent undercurrent of anxiety, a pattern that keeps repeating, a transition they don’t know how to move through. You don’t need a dramatic reason. A quiet, persistent sense that something needs to change is enough.
-
My approach is relational, trauma-informed, and depth-oriented. I’m not offering coping techniques or psychoeducation, though those things have their place. I work with what’s underneath, the emotional patterns, early experiences, and relational dynamics that shape how you show up in your life. The work happens in the relationship between us, and it tends to go places that haven’t been accessible through self-awareness or effort alone.
-
It varies. Some clients work with me for six to twelve months; others stay longer because the work keeps deepening. I’ll always be honest with you about how things are going. There’s no formula. The work ends when you feel genuinely different, not just more informed about yourself.
-
Bountiful Health is considered in-network with a few providers. For current fee & insurance information, visit the Fees & Insurance page.
GET IN TOUCH
Ready to Start?
Relief starts with a single step forward.
When you're ready, fill out the Client Inquiry Form.
From there, we'll set up a time to talk.
