Pia is a trilingual licensed therapist, educator, and visionary healer.  She is on a mission to heal the imbalances on planet earth by helping others to claim and build their self worth.  Pia specializes in integrating Clinical and Holistic modalities into healing sessions for individuals and groups. As her client, you receive the benefit of her 10 years providing psychotherapy as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, and serving as a Reiki Master, and Certified Advanced Emotional Freedom Technique Practitioner. 

 

High quality therapy can help you to identify your core issues and perhaps understand where those issues stem from. Though, oftentimes traditional therapy falls short in  teaching people the tools to actually heal their wounds and build the life they want. Unintentionally, traditional therapy can lead clients to believe they are being “healed” by the therapist and not recognize the vital role of the client in the healing process. Through her unique approach to healing, Pia has supported hundreds of  people in awakening the innate healing powers within themselves, in building their self worth, and transforming their lives.

 

Pia was raised with an awareness of her great privilege in life.  She was taught at a young age that the best way to honor her privilege was to be of service to others and the world, especially to marginalized communities.  As a result of some coursework at the University of Maryland, College Park, where Pia received her undergraduate degree, she became even more aware of her privilege. It didn’t seem fair to her that she was afforded a better quality of life simply for the color of her skin and her family's affluence.  This drove Pia on a quest to balance the imbalances and right the injustices. This was her main motivation in obtaining her Master’s Degree in Clinical Social Work at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice.  

 

In graduate school, Pia was guided on a deep journey of understanding how to own her White Privilege, and how to be a social change agent through being an advocate for social justice.  It was during that time that Pia obtained the increased awareness and skills to let go of guilt without minimizing responsibility, the clinical foundation to practice as a psychotherapist, and guidance on how to impart social change. Shortly before she graduated, she was offered a position in a prestigious post-master’s fellowship at UC Berkeley’s Counseling and Psychological Services Center and Social Services within the University’s Health Services Department.  

 

During her two years as a Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Counseling Center, and in the eight years to follow, she went on to serve some of the most marginalized populations; dedicating much of her service to the undocumented Latino population and to their children (aka The Dreamers).  Within the University, non profit, county health, community health, and private practice settings, she has supported countless individuals and refugee families seeking asylum from incest, rape, child abuse, assault,domestic violence and living with the daily trauma of being poor and of color.  

 

In supporting hundreds of trauma survivors, she came to understand that perpetrators almost always unconsciously feel like victims. They perpetrate violence from a place of pain and helplessness. This understanding lent itself to increase her capacity for compassion, and to recognize that feeling compassion towards others (even those who have caused harm) is not a weakness, but rather a strength. Connecting with compassion reduces fear and increases one’s sense of true empowerment and capacity, reducing the power those who have harmed us have over us in the present.   

 

After years of hearing what started to sound like almost the same exact story, it dawned on her, that at the core of each person’s suffering, was that the abuse or trauma they survived had left those individuals feeling worthless and not good enough.  Through this recognition, she was more able to see how the program of “not good enough” and “not worthy” plagued even those who had not experienced egregious abuse or mistreatment in their childhood or adult lives.  

 

Around the same time Pia was beginning to observe the common thread of self worth issues in her clients, she experienced a great heartbreak that increased her awareness of her own self-worth issues. This pain led her on a profound healing journey.  In the months and years following her personal struggle, Pia was led to extraordinary somatic and energy healers and practitioners, shamanic guides, intuition training, dance medicine, the practice of nonviolent communication, forgiveness practices, sound healing, and the discovery of her latent musical gifts.  Through the guidance of several incredible teachers and alternative healing modalities, she experienced a spiritual awakening and transformation that inspired her to pursue additional education in somatic and energy healing.  

 

Pia eventually acquired a certificate as an advanced level Emotional Freedom Technique practitioner through Sonya Sophia’s “School of Living Arts”,  as well as a master level Reiki certification with Tanya Corona of “Ascension Reiki and Crystal Therapy.” It was through the process of healing her issues with self-worth that Pia was gifted with the embodied experience of knowing all things can truly heal with love.  This inspired her to create her own unique blend of clinical and holistic modalities to help others heal even the deepest of woundings by guiding them on a journey to their own self love, forgiveness and acceptance.  

 

After several years working in a Community Health Clinic in Marin County, California, and battling with burn-out throughout that time, Pia began feeling the call to share her special style of healing in a less clinical setting and outside the confines of the federal and local governments restrictive mandates.  Struggling with exhaustion from her massive caseload and the endless paperwork, and feeling anger at the system for perpetuating the very conditions that led to so many of her clients to feeling worthless, being sick, depressed, traumatized, homeless and marginalized, she set out to create a more supportive environment in which she could make her services available to a wider clientele, and continue to teach others how to love, accept and heal themselves.  

 

Pia believes in the healing power of self-worth as our birthright and has seen first-hand how bringing awareness to this can transform our lives. She holds the vision of a world where peace prevails and love is the guide. She is devoted to ending the cycle of violence that plagues much of planet Earth.  She believes that it is time for a revolution, and that revolution must begin within.