ABOUT ME
MY STORY
Hi, I’m Pablo. I’m a queer, bilingual Latin American immigrant therapist.
I was born in South America, have lived on both the east and west coasts of the United States, and live in Oakland, California, where I am an Associate Social Worker (ASW) and a part of Axis Mundi Center for Mental Health.
Growing up between the U.S. and Latin America, and living in diverse immigrant communities, I have always been passionate about working with immigrants, children and grandchildren of immigrants, Third Culture Kids, and people from mixed race and multi-ethnic family backgrounds.
As a writer and artist, I have always, above all, felt that therapy is a creative act, about witnessing, writing, and rewriting the stories we tell about ourselves, the lives we’ve led, and what we desire for ourselves and our loved ones, especially where we have felt like outsiders, or have wounds around our power and self-worth, as many immigrants, children of immigrants, and queer people do.
MY TRAINING &
MY WORK
As a therapist, I like to work relationally. Simply put, I think of therapy as a connection that, at its best, can offer the play, vulnerability and healing possible in safe, consistent and accepting relationships.
I like to work narratively and creatively, and to embrace the questions. Having worked extensively with trauma and neurodivergence, I care a lot about bringing transparency, consent, and curiosity into the therapy room.
I like working with all kinds of people, but am particularly interested in self-esteem, and on how we relate to our values and our identities, especially around race, ethnicity and ancestry. I especially like working with immigrants and people with immigrant parents or grandparents. I also really enjoy working with people who are questioning their relationship to their gender and gender role, sexual orientation, and romantic relationships, whether queer or straight. I have worked with people from all over the world, and I also really enjoy working with U.S. born clients who have moved to California from back East or down South. Lastly, I really like working with artists, advocates and organizers.
As a therapist, I’m informed by my background as both as a social worker and in research, advocacy, and creative work. I bring both an attachment-focused, psychodynamic lens informed by my MSW education at Smith College, which I graduated from in 2020, as well as a passion for intergenerational and collective trauma, memory, and healing, shaped by working with life stories of Latina activists in Tijuana in 2013 and later New York at Columbia University’s Oral History Master of Arts program in 2016. I also bring professional experience as a trauma-informed creative writing workshop facilitator, and in agency work, including work at a refugee resettlement agency, a charter elementary school, an outpatient community mental health center specializing in work with immigrants and transgender clients, and at a holistic social services program for LGBTQ+ asylum seekers and asylees.