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Meet the Therapist

Depth work
in Palo Alto.

I became a therapist because therapy actually worked — not the version where you talk until time is up, but the version where something shifts.

The people I work with are thoughtful, reflective — and stuck anyway. That's where this work begins.

CIIS, San Francisco Gestalt & Depth Psychology Psychoanalytic Training Object Relations Somatic Work In-person · Palo Alto Telehealth · CA-wide
Shawn Walters
The Philosophy

How I think about this work.

The more capable someone appears, the harder it often is to ask for help — because it requires admitting that the competence that's always worked isn't working this time.

Depth work goes looking for what's underneath. The pattern that keeps repeating. The relationship that hits the same wall. These aren't problems to be solved — they're signals. Something in you is asking for attention.

I offer a place where you don't have to be competent, or explain yourself, or already have insight. Where the goal isn't to be fixed — but to be genuinely met.

I trained at CIIS in depth psychology, Gestalt, and somatic work. Three months at Plum Village and three at Deer Park showed me what genuine presence looks like.

If this resonates, a 15-minute conversation costs nothing.

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Before this

I came to this work
by a different route.

Before the degree, I spent two decades working alongside artists and engineers — people building things that mattered and that quietly cost them. I know that terrain from the inside.

I came to depth work through my own necessity. The training came after. That order matters.

Training & Credentials
M.A. Integral Counseling Psychology — California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco
Relational Gestalt Therapy — Residential Training
Psychoanalytic Training — ongoing
Plum Village 3-Month Mindfulness Residential, France · Deer Park Monastery, California
Registered Associate MFT #138642 — supervised by Christina Miller-Martinez, LMFT #105663, A Good Place Therapy, Palo Alto

The first conversation
is always free.

15 minutes. No intake form. Just a conversation.

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