Making the decision to begin therapy takes courage. It also usually comes at a difficult time. Perhaps you feel at your wits' end, trapped by your relationships or by where you find yourself in your life. You may feel overwhelmed, anxious, depressed, isolated, or under-resourced. If you are, or someone you love is, undergoing any kind of coming-out process, you may be at a loss as to how to make sense of the new possibilities that are emerging and the changes they entail. If you are a parent, you may feel anxious about your child or children and how best to guide and protect them. You may be struggling to feel ok about yourself as you try to be true to who you are, in the context of a family or community that may have given you negative and unaccepting messages.
I have been working with people on their growth and self-understanding for two decades. I have been a community worker and a professor. Since arriving in the Bay Area, I have worked as a psychotherapist in schools, at community-based clinic settings, and in private practice. My areas of expertise include gender and sexual identity issues, working with parents, childhood trauma, and relationship difficulties. I also work with neurodivergent adults; most of my clients on the autism spectrum are also on the gender spectrum. In all cases, I treat your experience of being you in the world with respect. I don’t believe difference should be pathologized. I will work with you to make room for what you need in our physical space and in our time together.
I work relationally and psychodynamically within a feminist and social justice framework. This means we will examine your present and your past, in any combination that works best for you. We will explore a range of interventions, from those that focus on understanding your family patterns, to those that work through how you feel in the moment with me, or that use strategies for managing emotional triggers as they come up in your life. I am informed by interpersonal neurobiology and attachment theory, as well as by a systemic understanding of power dynamics and patterns of interaction. I am a Level 1 Internal Family Systems qualified therapist, and will explore parts work with you. I am guided by your knowledge of what works for you.
If you are looking for a therapist with many years of experience working with the theory and practice of how we are made, hurt, and healed in the context of our families, cultures, and societies, contact me. I bring a transnational perspective, knowledge of otherness and difference, and great respect and care for who you are, and for who you want to be.
Natasha Distiller, Ph.D. (Literature); Ph.D. (Gender Studies), MA (Psychology), LMFT #103172
About
Find out about my therapeutic philosophy, and explore this site to see what I have written, my professional affiliations, and to see more of the different kinds of work I have done.
WHAT IS IFS?
Internal Family Systems is a way of working with the human psyche that is respectful, non-pathologizing, and empowering. It assumes that whatever is going on inside you has a reason. It offers a method for getting to know these reasons, and for helping you to heal. It overlaps with attachment theory and interpersonal neurobiology.