HELLO & WELCOME! I’m glad you’re here.

My name is Ella, and I provide compassionate, creative & trauma informed therapy to individuals of all ages - adults, teens, and children. 

My Approach to Therapy:

I help clients build a more compassionate relationship with themselves and their symptoms to support healing, liberation, and authenticity. When we learn a new way to be with ourselves, we shift in ways that allow for meaningful change to unfold. My approach is gentle, compassionate, and trauma informed. I hold deep respect for the ways of being that are in your nature, while supporting you to grow in the directions you seek.

I support people struggling with trauma, anxiety, and difficulty being yourself in relationships. This might look like having a strong inner critic part; feeling stuck in old patterns; perpetually betraying yourself to please others. You may have been noticing signs that you're ready for things to change, even if you don't know where to start. Maybe you resonate with descriptions like sensitive, deep feeler or deep thinker, outsider/other. You're ready to look honestly and authentically at how your internal and external landscapes shape your thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

Who I work with:

I know that folks with marginalized identities often find it meaningful to work with therapists who share similar identities. It makes the distance between you and me feel a little smaller. I am honored to work with fellow BIPOC, mixed-race, and queer folks, as well as people of marginalized genders. If you're a highly sensitive person, introvert, or deep feeler, I embrace these qualities as strengths and partner with them. My expressive arts specialty and creative approach means I connect well with creatives, and I value an expanse of modalities for self-expression. I find these qualities also help me build strong, respectful, and playful connections with teens and children.

When working with children, I offer non-directive play therapy and expressive arts during in-person visits. These modalities compliment children’s natural language of play and creativity, and allow them to work through their feelings in a comfortable and safe way. I love working with teens as well, and offer a blend of talk therapy while optionally engaging in drawing, games, or fidgets. Teen and child therapy is space where young people get to exercise their agency and explore what matters to them. I have experience supporting youth with anxiety, depression, life transitions, divorce, family dynamics, and ADHD. 

About me:

I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. I have been practicing since 2021, and received my masters in counseling psychology from California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), where I concentrated in expressive arts therapy. I identify as a queer, mixed race, cis-gender woman, with Filipino and European heritage. I have a background as a visual artist and working with teens in the outdoors. I draw on creativity, imagination, and nature as a resource. As a highly sensitive introvert, I engage with things deeply and appreciate the richness of internal experiences. I believe that my work as a therapist is one of the ways I can best offer my strengths as a tool for social change, and my hope is that I can support others to feel empowered in their own healing and liberation.