Kristin Fialko, MA, LMFT
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
San Francisco CA
Together will explore both the past and present and get to know your story and your body’s unique language & responses. I feel strongly in the belief that once one has the opportunity to deepen their own awareness of their being (body-mind-spirit), a sense of freedom can be experienced, as well as agency to feel, release and let go of all you may be holding or that which is holding you back.
I deeply value creativity, curiosity and approach therapy and psychedelic integration work from a somatic, intuitive, empathic and deeply relational place. I feel that the body is a holder of immense wisdom and memory on a spiritual, emotional and transgenerational level and therefore the inclusion of the body is essential.
I call my approach: Integrative Somatic Psychotherapy, and draw upon the following:
Transpersonal (spiritual) practices
Body-awareness & Movement techniques (rooted in Somatic Experiencing & Sensorimotor Psychotherapy)
Gestalt & Parts work
Guided meditation & imagery
Trauma-informed practice
Mindfulness practices
Expressive Art Therapy modalities
Social-Justice Orientation
Born and raised on the East Coast, my journey began as a watery & creative child who grew up in the woods, dancing and fantasizing of what the world had to teach me. Following my desire to explore, I escaped rural life to study art and painting in Baltimore, Maryland. There, beyond the deepening of my creative language, I birthed the beginning of a more conscious version of myself; one who would learn to heal her own traumas as a way to cultivate the holding of complexity, diversity and curiosity in others.
11 years ago, I closed the chapter in Baltimore and journeyed to San Francisco. This migration catapulted me into the reclaiming of my body through yoga, plant medicine somatic psychotherapy and social justice work. Deeply transformed and always inspired by the narratives of others, it didn’t take long for my art, social justice & community involvement and personal healing process to lead me to pursue my MA in Somatic Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
Throughout my training at CIIS, I worked in diverse communities including working with patients at California Pacific Medical Center, Alzheimer’s residents at Irene Swindell’s Alzheimer’s facility, with women at the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department’s Women Center in SF and the private practice sliding scale clinic, The Center for Somatic Psychotherapy.
Today, I am passionately indebted in being a facilitator of the healing work that is somatic psychotherapy and art healing practices and bringing it both to individuals and community mental health. I currently am practicing in my San Francisco and Oakland offices with a trauma-informed focus. I am also supporting our creative youth as a school therapist at Oakland School for the Arts located in downtown Oakland.