About Me: 

I am a registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist with specialized training in working with relationships through individual and couples therapy.  I consider myself to be a relational therapist whether I am working with an individual or a couple as my client because I believe that we as people are social beings and we cannot help but interact with each other.  This changes the way that I view the things we struggle with from day to day stressors to more ongoing mental health conditions.  Instead of a problem or diagnosis being an indication of something wrong with the person who is experiencing it, and “fixing” some aspect of them will make the problem go away, I focus more on the environmental conditions and relational dynamics in the person’s life that not only allowed for the problem to arise but continue to perpetuate it.  Through getting to know you and the way your lived experiences have shaped the way you relate to the world around you, we can work together toward making sense of the bigger picture, resolving things from your past, and finding your best way through whatever it is that brings you to therapy. 

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Me as a therapist:​

My perspective as a therapist centers on the idea that you as my client are the expert in your own experience and my role as your therapist is not to make decisions for you but rather to guide you in determining the best way for you to navigate your own life and relationships.  I am not concerned with how you show up in therapy, whether you’re calm and collected or overwhelmed with emotion, talkative or quiet, with a clear goal and direction in mind or no idea where to start.  As long as you show up, my goal is to meet you however you are and walk alongside you through every step of the therapeutic process.  The model of therapy I use is clinically proven to increase self-awareness and the understanding of one’s own emotions as well as deepening the tolerance for vulnerability and capacity for connection in the relationships that matter most to us.  I use an integrative approach pulling from evidence-based practices in order to create a tailored treatment setting that is as unique as each client and the dynamics they bring with them into session. ​

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My Background: 

I have always known I wanted to be in a helping profession but I did not take a direct route to the field of psychology and mental health.  I studied a wide array of subjects across multiple universities from the performing arts and biological sciences at Sacramento State University and exercise physiology at University of Miami in Florida.  After working in the field of physical therapy for two years I shifted my focus and completed my Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy with an emphasis in morality and ethics at San Francisco State University in 2015.  In 2017 I completed my Master’s Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy at Alliant International University in San Diego where I began training exclusively in Emotionally Focused Therapy and working with couples, individuals, and families.  As I learned more about this model of therapy and began to utilize it in practice, I also learned how to tie in aspects of my previous fields of study and to bring myself into the therapy room.  It was through this process that I found my passion for working with trauma and all the ways trauma can affect a person and show up in our interactions with others and our perception of ourselves. My life experiences and my clinical experience thus far have demonstrated to me that the path from one goal to another is rarely a straight line and there is no one right way to get anywhere.  Some challenges and obstacles are visible and tangible while other barriers are more difficult to see.  If we can first break down the barriers to connection that isolate us from each other and make it more difficult to seek support when we need it, then we never have to face our challenges, the visible ones or the intangible ones, alone ever again. 

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Alexina Clarke is a Registered Associate MFT  (AMFT110916) who is supervised by Jennifer Gonzalez ( LMFT98444)