Brooke Pomerantz, LCSW

You’ve ticked all the boxes - you achieved educational success and your professional life is going well. You’ve met - and exceeded - many expectations from society, your family, and your own childhood. But you’re not happy, and you’re not sure why. Maybe you’re not even sure what it would mean for you to be happy, to be fulfilled in your life. The idea of pursuing what will bring this level of satisfaction feels selfish, even dangerous, and you’re battling feelings of guilt about even contemplating it. In therapy, we’ll consider your values and how to bring your life and priorities into alignment with those values. We’ll look at the patterns you’ve developed and weigh their usefulness to you now - it’s easy to stick with habits and coping mechanisms past their date of expiration. What used to be helpful or wise or safe may not be working for you anymore, and we’ll work not just on changing those habits but on growing your self-compassion. Recognizing your internal narrative is the first step toward treating yourself with kindness. Flexibility, adaptiveness, and resilience will come from a deeper awareness and understanding of yourself. I provide individual psychotherapy to professionals and students who are interested both in symptom-relief and examining the root causes of depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, or relationship problems. Together we’ll delve into your inner world and explore who you are and what you want so that you can become more fully alive.

I see clients in-person at my Rockridge, Oakland that is BART-accessible. I also see clients by telehealth. I offer a compassionate, passionate, and integrated approach to psychotherapy. My style is active, authentic, nonjudgmental, and supportive. I work with individuals in distress to help relieve suffering and address the underlying issues causing pain. I work collaboratively with you to improve self-awareness, develop insight, and learn new ways of coping with life stressors to facilitate healing and growth.

I believe that participate in psychotherapy can help an individual better understand, process and work-through difficult life experiences within the context of a safe and supportive relationship. Psychotherapy can also help people put words to experiences and problems that can be hard to articulate and feel less alone in navigating their problems. Sometimes psychotherapy can help an individual resolve a problem or symptoms and other times psychotherapy can help a person better cope with a problem that may not be able to be resolved.