My name is Stacey, and I am a mental health therapist serving clients in San Francisco, California. With two decades of practice, I understand that seeking the right therapist and starting your healing journey can bring a mix of vulnerability, joy, and challenge. Exploring the truth is a courageous step toward self-healing, and I am here to support you on that journey. I truly believe that within each of us is a drive to flourish and seek health, and to reorient toward wellness. My mission is to help you, through a warm and interactive style, feel deeply understood and connected as you gain awareness of your own unique drive and healing process. My approach includes listening, fostering self-acceptance, and humor as some of the tools that can help you discover, gain understanding, and eventually minimize counterproductive patterns in your life that may be standing in the way of reaching your goals. My goal is for you to feel heard and supported. I help with anxiety therapy, depression, addiction, trauma therapy, LGBTQ+ issues, major life transitions, and many other stressors in today’s world. I look forward to hearing from you. Stacey Founder: SF Therapy Collective, Queer LifeSpace, and Rodger + Deiters.

You're the one everyone leans on. You remember the birthdays, smooth over the tension, and say, "I'm fine," before anyone finishes asking. But inside, it's a different story. You replay conversations, looking for what you said wrong. You stay quiet about what you need because asking feels like too much. Somewhere along the way, being easy to love started to feel safer than being truly known. If that sounds familiar, you're in the right place. I'm Dr. Kayla Sykes, a licensed psychologist, and I work with women who are really good at taking care of everyone else, but terrible at letting anyone take care of them. Maybe it shows up as anxiety in your relationship, dread before a first date, or resentment you can't quite say out loud. Maybe it's burnout from a career, or a season of motherhood, that asks for everything you've got. These patterns made sense once. Often, they were the smartest way to stay connected growing up. They just aren't serving you anymore. In our work together, we'll get curious about where your people-pleasing and relationship anxiety come from. Then we'll practice something new: noticing what you feel, saying what you need, and tolerating the discomfort of being seen. My approach is attachment-based and relational. When you want something practical to take into your week, I draw on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and compassion-focused tools. We can focus on what's happening in your relationship right now, or go deeper into the patterns that keep you from feeling truly seen and loved. I bring warmth, compassion, and a good amount of humor to our sessions. I'll also gently point it out when you start people-pleasing me, because therapy is one place you don't have to perform. I see clients throughout California by telehealth, so you can do this work from wherever you feel most at ease. If something feels off, you don't have to figure it out alone. Reach out for a free 15-minute consultation, and let's talk.

Are you finding yourself stuck in your relationships? Have you been told you're too needy or co-dependent? Are you struggling with anxiety, feelings of hopelessness, or low self-esteem? Do you struggle with feeling worthy? Through self-awareness, compassion, and empowerment, therapy can help you find relief from your suffering and create a new path for your future. Together, we'll use tools like mindfulness, somatic (body-based) techniques, and practical support like education and empowerment to help you overcome your challenges. I will work collaboratively with you to understand your goals for therapy and support you with tools to move beyond the patterns that keep you feeling stuck. I am passionate about supporting women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s overcome stress and overwhelm caused by life transitions, relationship issues, anxiety, and depression.

With a warm and friendly presence, I offer a collaborative experience of therapy. I have helped many individuals handle difficult work situations or career changes in academia, tech, and other fields. I also enjoy supporting people who are facing day-to-day stressors, loss, transitions, or issues with parenting. With exploration, individuals can discover new and creative ways to think about and address life challenges. In addition to individual and couples counseling, I offer mediation and conflict resolution services.

Are you struggling with depression, low self-confidence, or anxiety? Are you having difficulties in your relationships or at work? Are you finding it hard to cope with a loss, life transition, or illness? I have brought warmth, insight, and compassion to my work with individuals & couples for 25 years as a Psychologist. My approach to psychotherapy is to create a safe environment through listening and empathy that will enable you to talk about patterns in your life that are causing you distress. Together we explore your thoughts, emotions, behaviors, relationships and dreams with the goal of helping you achieve greater life satisfaction, healthier relationships & new sources of self worth. I am a Psychologist, Couples Therapist, and Hypnotherapist working with adults and adolescents. In Individual therapy, I help my clients with depression, anxiety, low self-confidence, grief, trauma, and childhood issues. In Relationship & Marital Therapy, I help couples develop communication & conflict resolution skills, and improve physical & emotional intimacy and trust. Last, I treat individuals experiencing stress and various health conditions, and I use Hypnotherapy to help reduce distressing symptoms and habits.

We exist in relationship. I do not believe in isolated healing, as much as it has been popularized in the self-help movement. Successful, integrated humans have always talked, shared, laughed together, cried together, raged together, and healed together. The lack of a genuine, unflinching mirror of an emotionally intimate connection with another human being does damage far beyond any that can be seen by the naked eye. STOP SCROLLING looking for connection, it's not there. STOP SWIPING looking for loving acceptance, it's not there. Where this connection can be found is in the loving holding exemplified in the progressive growth of emotional intimacy that naturally occurs in the therapeutic relationship. I'm not afraid of your feelings or your past. They are not a barrier to our shared connection, and to your healing. Together we can embark on a journey that picks you up where you are now, in a state of quiet desperation, unsure which way to turn, and deliver you to a place in the not too distant future where you can experience being the best you that you have ever been, where you can begin to live the life that right now seems like wishful thinking, where your relationships, with yourself and with others, can be based on deep communication and connection rather than misunderstandings, resentments, and frustration. I'm here to help, and I have the ability to help you change your life. But I can't help you if you don't reach out. Make a decision today that your future self will thank you for.

I believe that each person carries within them the potential for growth and wholeness. There are many experiences in life that may impede this natural capacity, causing people to get stuck in patterns that, while originally created to help the person survive, may currently be hindering their ability to thrive and find satisfaction in their lives. My job as therapist is to help people become aware of patterns that no longer serve them, get in touch with the resources they currently have, and identify and build resources they need to develop in order to have more choices available within themselves. I hold a deeply respectful, collaborative space for inner exploration and draw from the fields of client centered, somatic and mindfulness based approaches.

Most of what keeps people stuck isn't a lack of self-awareness. It's that awareness alone doesn't reach the places where patterns actually live - in the nervous system, in the body's automatic responses, in the dynamics that replay across relationships and years despite everything you already understand about yourself. My work is focused there. Not on building more insight, but on working directly with the patterns as they show up in real time, catching them in the moment, understanding what's underneath them, and creating the conditions for something to actually shift. With individuals, that means integrating somatic awareness, attachment work, and Enneagram alongside the relational and existential questions that don't fit neatly into a treatment framework. With couples, it means looking at what each person is bringing into the room — their nervous system, their history, their way of protecting themselves — and how those things collide. My style is warm and direct. I don't stay behind a professional wall because most people don't heal in a vacuum of neutrality. I bring myself into the room, and I think that matters. If you've done the work of understanding yourself and something still isn't shifting; that's exactly where this kind of therapy begins.

We seek psychotherapy for all kinds of reasons, commonly from a deep wanting for something to be different, for something to change. My goal is to help lift the veil of what is not working in your life by bringing you closer to yourself, your loved ones, and creating a path to a life you want, like, and feel that you are choosing. Clients who gravitate toward me as a therapist tend to share a desire to know themselves with greater depth and kindness. I offer the opportunity to make connections between what has happened in the past and the impact on the present, while also consistently highlighting strengths and what is working well. These skills can assist us in weathering issues like anxiety, depression, addiction and co-dependency, chronic illness, and challenging or fractured relationships. My presence can be described as curious, interactive, collaborative, and authentic. At times I will bring humor, at times challenging insights and feedback. And while I will always be a FOMO anarchist, challenging us to slow down rather than rush, I will show up with humility and respect for each individual’s pace, process, and needs. I meet people with allyship, with particular sensitivity to identities and populations that are systemically disallowed from taking up the same amount of space and value as others. My primary therapeutic orientations are relationalhumanistic, strength-based, and internal family systems. I look forward to hearing from you for a free consultation so you can decide whether I may be a place of safety and support for you.

If infidelity, betrayal, or a relationship crisis has left you unsure what is true, what to do next, or whether your relationship can recover, you may feel pulled between urgency and overwhelm. One partner may be searching for answers while the other fears that more truth will cause more damage. Or you may be the partner who was unfaithful, carrying shame, fear of judgment, or confusion about how you got here and what accountability now requires. I specialize in structured, active therapy for individuals and couples navigating infidelity, betrayal of trust, unresolved disclosure, relationship crisis, and high-stakes decisions about the future of a relationship. My approach is especially suited for people who need more than open-ended support. I provide clinical guidance, clear structure, and attention to what needs to happen first. For couples in the acute aftermath of infidelity, the first task may be stabilization—reducing escalation, establishing needed boundaries, and helping each partner become steady enough to engage more safely and effectively in truth-restoration work. When secrecy, omissions, changing accounts, trickle truth, or unresolved questions prevent a stable shared reality from forming, I may guide couples through a structured Truth Restoration and full-disclosure process when clinically appropriate. I also have a particular specialization in supporting the partner who was unfaithful. This may include individual work before, during, and after disclosure; reducing minimization or partial truth; managing shame and defensiveness; understanding the impact on the hurt partner; and developing greater accountability. I work specifically with women who broke trust and may be struggling with significant shame, identity conflict, fear of judgment, or uncertainty about what happens next. Some couples come to me after they have already tried to address the betrayal—through repeated conversations, previous couples therapy, informal disclosure, or even a more formal disclosure process—but still do not feel that shared reality or meaningful repair fully took hold. Others are uncertain whether they want to remain together at all. My Marriage Clarity work integrates principles from my training in Discernment Counseling within a broader approach to relationship distress. Infidelity may be part of the story, but it does not have to be. I work with couples facing chronic disconnection, resentment, recurring conflict, loss of intimacy, longstanding hurt, betrayal, or uncertainty about whether the marriage should continue. Infidelity or relationship crisis is often the doorway into the work rather than the end of it. Once sufficient stability, truth, and accountability have been established, therapy can deepen into the individual wounds, attachment patterns, protective strategies, roles, resentment, boundaries, and ways of relating that shape each person and the relationship. This deeper work focuses on greater self-awareness and differentiation—understanding what belongs to you, what belongs to your partner, and what happens between you. Understanding these dynamics does not excuse betrayal or redistribute responsibility for it. The goal is change that reaches beyond ending an affair, stopping a behavior, or promising that it will not happen again. My style is compassionate, direct, active, and structured. I will support you without avoiding difficult realities, challenge you when needed, and help you focus on what matters most now while making room for the deeper work underneath it.

I work with individuals across the life span using a relational, collaborative and non-directive approach. My goal is to empower others and help them identify dysfunctional relational patterns, recognize behaviors that are no longer working and explore new options for living. As relational trust deepens in a safe therapeutic environment, the healing process begins and creative energies are released. My approach, while informed by attachment and psychodynamic theories, is fundamentally client centered and respects your own innate growth process. I also utilize expressive arts and sand tray when appropriate to facilitate your process. My hope is to empower you to feel more in control of your own life and to make positive choices.

I specialize in psychotherapy for grief or loss (of people, pets, jobs, or relationships, all ages) and a separate focus on midlife transitions. Many people think of grief in very narrow terms: Sadness after an important person passes. That is a valid reason most people seek grief therapy. But grieving can also come from lost relationships or pets. In addition to sadness, emotions can include anger, irritability, numbness, or fear. These are all normal and together we can work through your myriad of reactions and move forward. Time alone does not heal all wounds. Nor does just keeping busy. Many people choose to “Give you space” when that just leaves you feeling alone. Working through healing is an active process. When you have experienced a death, your relationship has changed through physical separation, but you continue to carry those you have lost inside of you. Their memory continues to change your way of interacting with or being in the world. This is especially important to remember if your loss occurred long ago – you may still be facing the invisible effects of grief in your fear of intimacy, in your insistence on serving as a caretaker, refusal to count on anyone or in many other ways. Regardless of when your loss took place, bottling up emotions only allows them to grow. When you try to go around grief instead of through it, it sets up house in your unconscious mind. That’s when the monkey (your unconscious mind) gets to drive, and you don’t make conscious choices about where you are going. Some losses or huge changes make us question who we are now. For example, “What does it mean for me now that my parentsiblingfriendpet is gone?” “How do I deal with my relationship with my partnerspouse ending?” Maybe you lost someone to suicide and blame yourself or feel rage. Maybe you feel you must hide from your feelings and hide those photos, letters, keepsakes from your own eyes. In our work you will have the time and space to be open and honest about any emotions you have. I would never judge you for anything you have done or said prior to or after your loved one’s death or your break-up. Grief counseling is an entirely safe, supportive space for you to explore your every emotion and question, no matter how large or existential they may be. It's good to share your struggles with moving on with mundane tasks and handling future events too. All your feelings are understandable and acceptable, even if they include anger or guilt! It isn't actually healthy for us to hide from our grief though. I can help you get you through it and even find meaning or growth in the process. During grief counseling sessions, I can teach you tools to identify and cope with your sadness and other emotions. As you are ready, we will unpack memories of your loved one and piece things together to see events in a new perspective. You can begin to grow comfortable with positive memories while you prevent negative ones from having undue power over your thoughts and actions. And, you can let go of guilt and fear so you can begin to reconnect with your passions, be present in your relationships, and find happiness and hope in your life again. Some people choose to stay on and get help for the stress in the life they live now. I have experience with lots of issues outside of grief and loss. My style is to be very direct. I listen, but I don’t just let you talk and then ask you how that makes you feel. You and I are collaborators, taking a journey together. I use humor when it's helpful. I treat you as an individual and any helpful exercises I may give you will be customized to your needs. I don't have a limit as to how long we continue to meet; that will be up to you and we will discuss it together. The best way to contact me is by text at (650) 269-1688 so we can schedule a FREE phone consult. The second best way is to leave me a voicemail at the number. Scroll down for information about my midlife transition specialty.