

Amara Santos
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist #159145
I work with adults and children of all gender identities, cultural backgrounds, and neurotypes seeking:
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Couples/Partner Therapy
Family Therapy
Individual Therapy
Therapy Intensives
In English & En Español
ABOUT
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For me, therapy is a relationship where you can process your life experiences in a safe, brave, and supportive space to gain more self-awareness, compassion, understanding, and liberation from the patterns and emotional distress your body has been holding. Sometimes neuroaffirming care means getting out of the office and meeting for a hike/walk. This supports somatic connection and bineural integration.
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In addition to weekly appointments, I offer
Therapeutic Intensives. These consist of a series of longer sessions over a short amount of time. Designed for couples or families that have complex, long standing tension, or an acute impasse. Please contact me for additional information.
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THERAPEUTIC
APPROACH
We are relational beings; it is in relation to others that we experience our wounding and our healing. The quality of our relationships across the lifespan shapes our experiences and influence our story, beginning with our family of origin and followed by friends and partners, along with cultural and societal constructs. How we make sense of our experiences impacts the way we move through the world, our perception of self and other, how our body feels, and how our nervous system becomes activated.
I meet my clients where they are and hold the whole of them and their experiences with care and respect. I approach therapy through a feminist and liberation framework, oriented towards depth psychology, object relations, psychodynamics, somatic awareness, narrative therapy, and nervous system regulation.
​Some of the experiences I work with include:
complex trauma, anxiety, panic, parenting, grief/loss, body image, disordered eating, dissociation, relationship patterns & dissatisfaction, infidelity.
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EDUCATION
2020-2022
California Institute of Integral Studies
Masters Degree in Integral Counseling Psychology (MFT)
San Francisco, CA
2109-2020
California Institute of Integral Studies
Bachelor's Degree in Psychology
San Francisco, CA
CONTACT
Phone: 831.318.0778
Email: amarasantostherapy@gmail.com
Location: Branciforte Plaza
Santa Cruz, CA
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