Psychotherapy offers a way of healing in relationship.  

I am honored to assist my clients in finding greater peace, fulfillment, and vitality.

Making space to navigate change and confront challenges with professional assistance is a gift to yourself and the world around you.  Therapy offers both tools for greater reflection, as well as ways talking to your body, soul, and unconscious.  Together we will uncover not only the why of your emotions and behaviors, but the how -- giving you greater self-compassion, control, and ability to make new choices. 

My Approach

Body-oriented, or somatic, psychotherapy offers a way of engaging with a greater knowledge beyond what is stored in our brain.  As we integrate what we learn about ourselves and the world around us, we make lasting changes by translating this knowledge into an embodied practice.

My services as a Marriage and Family Therapist (#106908) are offered in a private practice setting in downtown Oakland, California.  I hold a Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology with a Somatic emphasis from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS).  I have engaged in clinical practice for nearly fifteen years, since 2012. Additionally, I have completed training in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Level I, Relational Somatic Healing, Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, Leadership Embodiment, Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR), regular EMDR Consultation blending Internal Family Systems with the work of Janina Fischer for developmental trauma, regular consultation group for Multi-Heritage Couples, and Introduction to Gottman Method Couple Therapy Level I. These methods support my approach in working with people who have experienced both single-incident and complex traumas. I am drawn to discussing incorporating holistic approaches such as movement practices and nutrition as clients are so interested. I have also participated in multiple anti-racist training programs, workshops, and accountability groups, most noteably a 4-month training with Catalyst Project’s Anne Braden Anti-Racist Organizer Training Program in 2009.

It was through social justice organizing that I came to learn about somatic psychotherapy and try it as a client.  My own experiences of healing influence how I practice.  

My style of therapy is personal, engaged, warm, curious, and dedicated to humility.  I offer a blend of approaches, primarily focusing on somatic, attachment-informed, oppression-conscious, creative, narrative, and deeply relational models.

I bring to my practice a commitment to inquiry and a dedication to holding a multi-faceted context which includes the systems that shape us. This includes a life-long pursuit of justice through confronting systems of power and oppression. I am of Ashkenazi Jewish descent and proudly anti-Zionist. I believe in the liberation of all people harmed by colonization and imperialism - this includes an ongoing personal reflection and accountability process as a white-privileged settler living in the United States. Naming systemic and state-sanctioned violence is a part of mental health. I acknowledge my choice to practice with a license in Marriage and Family Therapy within a Western Psychotherapy model is inherently complex and aligned with colonization. My choice to be and stay licensed is for the protection of clients that coaching does not provide, as well as the rigor of training requirements for licensed psychotherapists.

I look forward to connecting with you.

Dana Aleshire

510-214-3865 or danaaleshiretherapy@gmail.com