About Nikole
A steady companion for the deeper work.
I help people understand the parts of their inner life that don’t respond to more effort: the feelings and patterns that keep returning, the relationships that circle back to the same place, the sense of being out of touch with something important.
My presence is calm and my pace is purposefully slow. I’ll listen closely, ask questions that open things up, and stay with you when something is hard to say. You don’t need to have it sorted out before we talk.
Whether you’re carrying anxiety no one else can see, stuck in the same painful dynamic with someone you love, or wrestling with what you want out of your life, I’d be glad to help you understand what’s happening and find your way forward.
Schedule a free consultation →
CA AMFT 150080
My work
Thinkers, feelers, and makers.
The people I work with tend to be thoughtful and capable, and tired of working so hard to understand something that isn’t changing. Some think their way through everything and are starting to wonder what they feel. Some feel everything and want help finding words for it. Some are creatives who’ve spent years giving shape to other people’s ideas and lost the thread of their own. Some have lived with anxiety for so long it’s started to feel like part of who they are. And some are caught in a loop of doubt that no amount of reasoning will close, wondering whether they’ve done something wrong or whether they’re a good person.
I also see couples who care about each other and want to understand what keeps pulling them apart, and teens, who often know more about what’s going on inside them than the people around them expect.
Education & training
Newport Psychoanalytic Institute
Fuller Graduate School
Talbot School of Theology
Biola University
I see clients in person in Newport Beach and Fullerton, and by telehealth anywhere in California. Fees, insurance, and sliding-scale details are on the FAQs page.
How I got here
From the studio to
the consulting room.
Before I was a therapist, I spent fifteen years as a designer and art director, and later taught design as an adjunct professor. Friends and colleagues will tell you I was always the one asking the bigger questions about people and meaning. In my design practice and in the classroom, the thing I love most is the listening, the unearthing of something meaningful, and spending time with the project to see it come to be in its own idiom.
I also trained as a spiritual director, through a Master’s in Spiritual Formation & Soul Care, thinking that would be the formal way I’d put my penchant for listening to use, alongside my design career. During that time my own experience in psychoanalytic therapy shaped me in profound ways. I realized I wanted to pursue analytic training, and when I did, things clicked and I took the leap.
This is the most meaningful work I’ve done, and it pulls together facets of all my interests and experiences. I’ve come to believe that our work in therapy is its own creative process at a grand scale: an invitation to slow down, listen deeply, and make room for what wants to emerge.
What I value
The things I bring to every session.
Therapy happens in a relationship, and I take that seriously. I bring genuineness, warmth, steadiness and close attention, so you have someone to think and feel alongside, at a manageable pace.
Before I try to make sense of anything, I want to know from your perspective what it’s like to be you. I value being curious about your experiences, including the ones you may have stopped noticing, so that we can understand your experience deeply.
Your story deserves dignity and to be taken seriously, including the parts you’ve worried are too small or too much. I have profound respect for what brings you here, and for the ways you’ve found to cope.
Something happens when two people turn toward the same question. You know your life from the inside; I bring training and careful attention. Together we start to see what neither of us could see alone.
Family, culture, work, faith, the body you live in: all of it shapes you, and all of it is welcome here. You don’t have to leave any part of yourself at the door.
The things that keep returning have roots that go beyond symptoms. We’ll take the time to dive deep in order to understand what’s uniquely speaking underneath. By working beneath the surface we help create integrated, lasting change that builds.
My approach
Curious about what working together looks like?
My approach page goes further into the thinking behind the work: why the pace is slow, why it’s open-ended, and what we’ll listen for along the way.
Read about my approach →