Where I walk
Walking sessions in Oakland
Therapy that happens on the paths above the city, at whatever pace your day allows.
Oakland is where most of this practice happens. It is a city with an unusual amount of walkable green space for its density, and that turns out to be a genuine clinical asset. Within twenty minutes of most neighbourhoods there is a path under oaks, a shaded loop around water, or a ridge with enough view to give a hard conversation somewhere to go.
A walking session in Oakland works like this. We agree a meeting point at a public park or trailhead ahead of time, usually one that is easy for you to reach and has parking or transit nearby. We meet there at the start of the hour, walk at a pace you set, and talk. There is no office, no waiting room, and no reception desk. At the end of the fifty-three minutes we finish where the route brings us out, and you go on with your day rather than sitting in traffic to get back to a building.
For a lot of Oakland clients the appeal is not the exercise. It is that the format removes the parts of therapy that were putting them off. Sitting knee to knee in a small room, being watched while trying to find the words, feeling the clock on the wall, none of that is essential to the work, and for some people it is actively in the way. Side by side, moving, with the world going past, people say things they had not planned to say. Silence stops feeling like failure. The hour breathes.
There is a practical honesty to name too. Outdoor sessions are public space. We do not walk on busy pavements where conversations carry, and I choose routes with room and quiet, but complete acoustic privacy is not something an outdoor session can guarantee in the way a closed office can. We talk about that before we start, and some people choose telehealth for the more sensitive stretches of work and walking for the rest. Weather matters too: East Bay winters bring real rain, and if the trail is not workable we move that week's session to video rather than canceling the rhythm.
The people I see in Oakland tend to be young adults working out what their life is supposed to look like, teenagers who have refused every office-based therapist their parents suggested, and new parents in the middle of the biggest role change of their lives. A fair number arrive skeptical about therapy in general, often with good reason, a previous therapist who did not listen, a family where being open was not safe, or a general sense that talking is not going to fix anything. Skepticism is welcome. It is usually a sign that you have been paying attention.
There is no office address to publish here, because there is no office. Sessions take place on public trails around the city, and the specific meeting point is arranged directly with you. If you are outside Oakland but inside California, telehealth covers the rest.