Kate Finney, MFT

Kate Finney, MFT is an individual and couples therapist practicing in the Bay Area with offices in Oakland and downtown San Francisco. 

 MY APPROACH

 INDIVIDUALS

As an individual psychotherapist my goal is to create a respectful, supportive, and honest relationship.  I want to hear about your unique goals for therapy and tailor the work to fit your needs.  It is important to me to understand the complexity of your concerns through discussing your history, environment, belief systems, and relationships.  I want to hear about what life is like for you, both externally and internally.  I check in with clients often during sessions about their experience and encourage feedback. Through utilizing the therapeutic relationship and bringing attention to your present moment experience I help clients create real and lasting change.  My work helps clients:

  • Embark on the process of self-discovery
  • Resolve past trauma and change long-standing patterns of behavior
  • Identify wants and needs and how to best achieve them
  • Understand unconscious patterns and beliefs and how they might be standing in the way of change
  • Bring forth insight about patterns of relating
  • Unlock authenticity
  •  Acknowledge their emotional life and trust the information it provides
  • Identify innate capacities for healing and growth

COUPLES

My work with couples is practical, active, and aimed at increasing vulnerability and connection.  Almost every couple includes “communication issues” in a description of their problem.  One of my main goals is to identify the barriers around communicating and understand why and where breakdowns happen.  When approached in a safe environment like therapy, I believe the conflict that often drives couples apart can actually help give way to deeper intimacy and connection.  My work helps couples:

  • Engage in disagreements in a more respectful and productive way
  • Resolve past issues and/or resentments
  • Increase awareness of communication patterns and shift unhelpful ways of engaging
  • Discover how to use conflict as a way to increase closeness
  • Engage in difficult conversations that have been too heated to have alone
  • Prepare for transitions in your relationship
  • Increase intimacy and connection while maintaining a sense of self