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THERAPY FOR LIFE TRANSITIONS IN PALO ALTO AND THE BAY AREA

Image by Kristaps Grundsteins

Are you navigating a major change — a career shift, a divorce, a relocation, or the end of a chapter you didn't see coming? Are you dealing with something significant and finding it hard to get your footing, even though you're someone who usually figures things out?

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If you're in the Bay Area and looking for a therapist to help you navigate a major life transition, I can help.

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Life in The Bay Area 

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Most of my Palo Alto and Bay Area clients are successful by any reasonable measure. They've built careers in tech, medicine, finance, or law. They're used to solving hard problems. They're used to being the person other people come to for answers.

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That background is a real asset in most areas of life. It becomes a liability when the problem is personal rather than professional — when what's needed isn't a smarter strategy but a different kind of clarity.

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High achievers tend to underestimate how much a major life transition affects them. They assume they can think their way through it the same way they've handled everything else. Sometimes that works. More often it doesn't — and the cost shows up in their relationships, their health, or their performance before they realize something needs to change.

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What I've found after nearly 30 years of working with this kind of client is that the transition itself is rarely the whole problem. It's usually surfacing something that was already there — a question about identity, meaning, or direction that got buried under the demands of a successful career. The transition just makes it harder to ignore.

What Therapy for Life Transitions Looks Like

 

Many of my clients come to me not because something is clinically wrong but because they're in the middle of something big and want someone objective and unrelated to them to think it through with. Someone with no stake in the outcome and no history with them.

 

This is therapy for life transitions. It's practical and forward-focused. You set the goals. I help you get there and stay honest about your progress.

 

Common transitions I work with include:

 

  • Career changes, pivots, and exits — including leaving the corporate world or founding a company

 

  • Divorce and relationship transitions

 

  • Relocation — including the identity disruption that comes with leaving a community you've built

 

  • Retirement / selling a company and the loss of structure and purpose that can follow

 

  • The empty nest

 

  • Loss and grief

Why Work With a Licensed Therapist Rather Than a Coach?

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The Bay Area has no shortage of executive coaches and life coaches. Coaching is an unregulated industry — anyone can call themselves a coach with no training or accountability. Working with a licensed therapist for life transitions means you're getting someone with clinical training, ethical accountability, and the ability to recognize and address deeper issues if they surface. That's a meaningful difference, especially when the transition is connected to something more complex underneath.

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All sessions are conducted via telehealth, which means you can work with me from anywhere in California. I previously had an office in Palo Alto and have worked with Bay Area clients for many years — from the Peninsula to San Francisco to San Jose.

If you're in the Bay Area and navigating a major transition, I invite you to call me at 650-646-4220. I'm always willing to spend a few minutes on the phone to discuss whether I'm a good fit for what you're dealing with.

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For more information, visit my Therapy for Life Transitions page. Feel free to contact me with any questions.

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