When you understand yourself more deeply, your life begins to change
Psychodynamic and EMDR therapy for individuals and couples in Pasadena
Pasadena, CA · LCSW · EMDR & EFT Trained
Therapy that meets you where you are
I’m a warm, relational therapist, and I bring compassion, cultural curiosity, and deep respect for your lived experience into our work together. As an immigrant with roots in Colombia, I’m attuned to the complexities of identity many of us carry — being first-generation, multicultural, or holding the weight of what came before us. Whether you come on your own or with a partner, my hope is that you feel seen and that your wholeness is honored. You are the expert on your life; my role is to meet you where you are.
Many of the people I work with already understand themselves well. They can name their patterns — pulling away, over-functioning, the moments connection slips — and still find those patterns hard to change. The space between knowing and living differently is where our work begins. Drawing on relational therapy, embodiment practices, EMDR, and EFT, we’ll work with your mind, body, and history — and with what happens between us — so the understanding you already have can become a different way of living.
Our Services
Individual Therapy
Psychodynamic and somatic therapy for adults who sense that their patterns run deeper than surface-level habits. We work with your body, your history, and what shows up in the present moment.
Couples Therapy
Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples who want to stop cycling through the same arguments. We slow down what happens between you so both people can actually be heard.
EMDR
Structured reprocessing for experiences that stay stuck in the nervous system long after the mind has made sense of them. Effective for trauma, anxiety, and grief that resists talk therapy alone.
ApproachWhat changes in this room
Most of the people I work with already have real self-awareness. They can describe their patterns in detail — the avoidance, the over-functioning, the way relationships start to feel claustrophobic or disappearing. Knowing these patterns hasn’t been enough to change them.
The gap between understanding and change is where this work lives.
That gap usually isn’t intellectual. It’s held in the body, in relational habits that formed long before you had words for them. Psychodynamic therapy helps us see what’s actually operating beneath the surface. Somatic and EMDR work gives us a way to reach it. And the relationship between us — the ways you show up here, what you avoid, what you let yourself feel — becomes the most honest material we have.
“Knowing your patterns isn’t the same as being free of them. The work happens in the distance between the two.”
— Melissa Tines, LCSW
BeginningThree steps to start
01
Reach out
Use the contact form to tell me a little about what brings you to therapy. I respond within one business day.
02
Free consultation
We’ll have a brief phone call so you can ask questions, get a feel for how I work, and decide if it feels like a good fit.
03
First session
We begin. The first few sessions focus on understanding your history, your goals, and what’s happening in your life right now.