Call 415-647-3262

What you cannot learn in the body,

You can learn nowhere else.

...Bhagavad Gita

 

We are individual psychotherapists who share office space and advertizing. We all specialize in body-centered or somatic psychotherapy, believing that life is experienced and lived as much in the body and spirit as it is in the mind, and that all mind-body-spirit processes contribute to the organization of the whole person.

Frances Verrinder

Frances Verrinder MFT

Michael Griffith

Michael Grifith MFT

Abbie Endres

Abbie Endres MFT

Marjorie Chaset

Marjorie Chaset MFT

Traci Ruble

Traci Ruble MA

Joshua Cross

Joshua Cross MFT

Call us for information   415 647 3262 or 415 546 6548

Somatic psychotherapy focuses on unblocking our physical and emotional defenses thus supporting the normal human tendency towards health, wholeness and integration - the fully experienced, alive and relational self.

Painful childhood experiences and emotional injuries often compromise our natural development toward health, maturity and relatedness.  When we are hurt or frightened, we protect ourselves by organizing defensive patterns, constricting our breath, our bodies, our emotions and thoughts, our hopes and dreams.  These survival strategies protect us when we are young, but restrict our loving, authentic, spontaneous, pleasurable lives as adults in relationship with others, the world and ourselves.

Our approach utilizes the “body-felt-sense” to explore current emotional experience and behavior, as well as painful early experiences.  Where appropriate and always with the client’s permission, we also use a variety of techniques including touch, movement and breath.


Our work also integrates Gestalt, family systems approaches, Expressive arts (play therapy, sand tray, art and psychodrama), experiential and somatic psychotherapies with traditional psychodynamic and humanistic approaches, creating a supportive and healing environment, which cares for the whole person, the couple or the family in treatment.

While many people report significant insights from traditional talk therapy, they often find themselves ready for more dynamic, interactive and engaged work.