Career Counseling Therapists in Oakland, CA

Counseling, to me, is a collaborative space where clients are empowered to explore, find their own path, and work towards their goals. I’m a queer, neurodiverse counselor, and while I am especially passionate about discussing gender, sexuality, and neurodiversity with clients, I enjoy working on a variety of concerns with clients of any identity or experience. Therapy with me often includes building self-awareness, learning and practicing validation, and challenging oneself to make desired changes at a realistic pace.

Accepting new clients. I have available teletherapy appointments and will soon start provinding In-person sessions. Are you experiencing low motivation, worries, and feeling down? Are you wanting to feel more confident and move forward in life? If this sounds like the change you want, please call me for a free 15 minute consultation to see if my approach meets your needs. Therapy can support your path to a more authentic you.

Welcome! My name is Sukhpreet Kaur, and I am a first generation American. I believe that we are the key to our own healing, therefore it is important to me to hold a space for you that is safe, collaborate, and empowering for healing and exploration.

I strive to create an authentic connection with my clients so we can develop an effective partnership in which healing, trying on new ways of thinking, and exploring change can happen safely. I believe that the foundation of mutual trust, empathy, and curiosity that I create with my clients will help them build meaningful relationships with others, mend old wounds, and learn more about themselves and how they contribute to their struggles. Helping my clients see themselves through a new lens will help them achieve the growth and fulfillment they want in their lives. Please don't hesitate to call for help.

You are here! The first step is often the hardest step. In Black and Brown communities seeking mental health treatment is taboo. Stigmas attached to therapy are REAL! Let's work on building a better understanding of what it truly means to be healthy. Feeling lost, stuck or confused? Having trouble communicating your needs? Finding it hard to set healthy boundaries? Need help setting goals? Suffering from anxiety and depression? In constant state of turmoil? These are all normal feelings. Internal struggles rooted in our childhoods show up as chaos in adulthood. It is okay to work on YOU! I can help.

I work primarily with relationships; your relationship to yourself, to others, to your future, and to your past. With over 30 years in practice, I use a collaborative style with my clients. Self esteem, depression, anxiety, parenting issues, infertility, life transitions, adult children of alcoholics, addiction recovery, trauma, and couples therapy are my expertise. I specialize in helping couples improve communication and intimacy while creating more secure relationships. I see adults and adolescents and supervise psychologists in training. I often see people who are stuck in negative patterns and struggling to change.

Services: I provide individual psychotherapy for adults, using an approach involving mindfulness based practices and an existential-humanistic mindset. I am a licensed clinical psychologist who has worked across the full spectrum of psychotherapy settings, including private practice, mental health clinics, inpatient settings, and day treatment programs. I have also held numerous clinical leadership roles, such as the director of a county outpatient mental health center, and the director of an inpatient psychiatric unit.

Life can feel impossible to avoid struggling and we often don't feel we have the skills to cope successfully through. Unfortunately, sometimes we don't have all the resources we need for a given situation. Parts of us take on desperate roles trying to help us to survive. This might look like anxiety, depression, PTSD, addiction, and relationship/family issues. I aim to help you process unresolved issues and feelings and find solutions.

Pain and discomfort are unavoidable parts of being human. The pain we face in our life can be sprung on us through a myriad of life events and triggers. These hard times can leave us feeling depressed, anxious, lonely, misunderstood, and impact our work and relationships.

You may feel lost, but you are not alone. We all experience suffering as a part of the human condition, yet sometimes our symptoms of stress, despair, worry, or self-criticism stand in the way of living the life that we want. If you find yourself troubled by a particular life problem or psychological condition, or generally lacking a sense of vitality and purpose, working with a clinician can help you reconnect with yourself and your strengths. Therapy often helps us to make useful connections between our actions, our thinking, our emotional reality, and patterns in relationships that we have developed over years.

It is a privilege to help others who are seeking support on their journey. As a licensed psychologist who enjoys working with adults, children, families, couples, as well as groups, I appreciate a holistic approach to lifestyle changes. It is important to consider physical, mental and emotional health to increase our quality of life. We don’t have control over some circumstances in life, but we can work to optimally navigate what comes our way. Cognitive behavioral therapy, solution focused therapy, mindfulness for stress reduction, managing occupational strain and psychoeducation are some of the techniques I find helpful.

My work is focused around all things related to growing your family. Infertility is the primary focus of my practice (social, secondary, unexplained), and the challenges that come up around issues related to the process. Being human amidst all the intersecting layers of life and infertility and can be brutal. Having a space dedicated to sorting out your feelings, goals, and direction can be helpful--and I'll be there to help navigate the landscape.

Common to the clients I work with is the desire to acquire a deeper understanding of themselves, to feel less stuck, better at voicing their needs, to feel less worry, more presence and joy. Many are seeking more meaningful connections & better communication in relationships. Recovery from difficult aspects of childhood, stressful life transitions, parenting challenges, and questions around identity often come up. Some clients are exploring spirituality. Most are unpacking familial and social beliefs and behavior patterns, while defining and creating new ones. Common to our human experience is adjusting to the constant changes.

I know the journey of life is not an easy one and sometimes we need some help to get through unexpected struggles and get in the way of living a happy and healthy life. I am dedicated to the holistic healing of the mind, body, and soul. Many people describe me as warm, understanding, and down to earth. I pride myself on integrity, commitment, and passion for the work I do as a therapist.

I specialize working with trans, queer, bisexual, lesbian, questioning, and gay people of color (Black, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Latino/a/x/e, Multiracial/Biracial), providing gender- and queer-affirming care. I can provide letters of support for gender-affirming surgery. I work well with folks who are self-aware but sometimes "to a fault." You find feelings hard but really want to work on "feel the feelings!" You are willing to take risks and be real when something is hard. You want a change but feel stuck, and are down to try both new and old things. You want to be a better person/friend/partner/coworker/child/etc.

Have you landed here feeling lost, overwhelmed, and alone? Maybe you are navigating relationships, life transitions, grief/loss, struggling with depression, anxiety, or trauma? I am here to help. It was through my own personal experience of crisis in my 20's, aided by my observant nature and insatiable curiosity about the human condition, the lead me to pursue the path of a psychotherapist.

Are you going through internal struggle due to trauma? Do you feel anxious and depressed about the future? Do you struggle with family issues and relationship issues? I’m willing to meet you where you are, help you process unwanted thoughts and emotions, and help develop an action plan to effectively cultivate your healing and growth. I’m here to help you explore unresolved feelings (anxiety, depression, anger, helplessness, grief, etc.) and develop skills to effectively cope with them. Thus, you can feel relieved and fulfilled in your relationship with yourself and others.

The decision to begin therapy can be daunting, especially if you are already feeling vulnerable and uncertain about what to expect from a therapist. Whether you have specific symptoms that you want to address or a vague sense of something not feeling right, therapy can help. I am a licensed clinical psychologist with over 15 years of US and international experience. I’ve worked with individuals and couples across the lifespan who come from every region of the world. I have successfully treated a broad range of difficulties, and my work is grounded in effective treatment methods.

I strongly believe that the most healing aspect of therapy is directly related to the safe connection with the therapist. Trainings inform the therapy but only feeling safe and seen will provide the ground for deep exploration and emergence of the new... almost like a birthing process. Client based, my style is warm, compassionate, nonetheless, assertive. Experience and various trainings keep supporting the importance of breath, grounded presence and mindfulness in any therapeutic setting and healing/life process. Therefore, those are central to my work. My sessions combines several psychotherapy approaches together with various somatic practices such as bioenergetics, movement, mindfulness & trauma work.