Mel Brown
(she/her)

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Welcome to my practice! I provide psychotherapy to persons of all ages, focusing my work in areas of depression, anxiety, grief, self-esteem challenges, relationship challenges, and trauma. My therapeutic interests and expertise includes working from a client-centered, strength-based, resilience-informed, family-systems and gender-affirmative approach to supporting clients’ journeys towards reparative healing, self-empowerment, and feeling better. I have extensive experience working with children, adolescents, couples, families, and individuals with a commitment to providing culturally competent care to LGBTQIA+ people and welcoming clients of color into my practice. I am a white, cisgender second-generation American-born woman with class privilege and do my best to continue learning how to be an anti-racist white person and how best to support BIPOC clients to heal from the effects of racism and colonization. I also want to acknowledge my presence on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples.

I draw on many therapeutic techniques in my work (i.e. Somatics, Play Therapy, Dream Work, Transpersonal, DBT, Psychodynamic, Attachment Theory, Liberation Psychology, and Mindfulness) and am always evolving my approaches based on the needs of my clients. I consistently work to provide a safe space for my clients, expressing warmth, authenticity, unconditional positive regard, accurate empathetic understanding, and a non-judgmental approach to our work together. I have experience providing gender-affirming care to transgender, non-binary, and questioning folks.

I earned my Bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a minor in Sociology from the University of Denver and hold a Master's Degree in Counseling Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies. I am a member of the Mind The Gap group of gender-affirmative specialists in Northern California, volunteer at the UCSF Gender Clinic as a Community Engagement Consultant, and am currently the Assistant Manager to the Intern Program at Golden Gate Integral Counseling Center in San Francisco.

I am currently offering telemedicine sessions, with a hopeful outlook to be offering in person sessions in the future.