Eveline Wu, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
I support people, who have grown up outside the mainstream and have been “undersupported” in life, to live authentic lives grounded in their truth, in ways that care for their own needs.
When you have pushed yourself to excel beyond your family circumstances, and you’ve crossed cultures from the world you grew up in, it can be difficult to feel understood.
Perhaps you know what the issues are intellectually, and you still get hit with anxiety, depression or painful repetitive patterns.
If you’ve been longing for a unique therapist who has both the verbal and nonverbal sensitivity, to support you in sorting out complex emotional reactions, symptoms, blocks, and repetitive patterns in your relationships and life, I welcome you.
Working with me, you’ll find someone who can hold complexity while challenging you to grow. You’ll find someone who is sensitive to many ways of being in the world, and can guide and support you in your complex world of feelings and overwhelm, towards your mental health goals.
My path to becoming a Marriage and Family Therapist began 20 years ago as a practitioner of a mind/body approach for working with people with chronic pain and trauma, called the Feldenkrais Method. Through working first with the body, I have learned to listen both to verbal and nonverbal ways of being, and how mind and body hold memory and can heal.
I bring to you decades of study of “somatic” mind/body psychotherapy approaches including Focusing, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, psychophysical therapy, attachment theory including Emotion Focused Therapy. I continually attune to the mind/body relationship to support you, and honor the uniqueness of who you are.
I believe in holding focused space for you where we can support you to reach past your fears or blocks, to face what has been difficult, and get to what you truly want.
In the last few years, this has led me to extensive training in Intensive Short-term Dynamic Psychotherapy, using video consultation to follow moment-to-moment mind body cues to uncover patterns of anxiety held in bodily symptoms, and to most effectively support you to resolve symptoms and access unconscious emotional memory as efficiently and directly as possible. This can be particular effective for clients who have talked in circles, struggled to feel, or feel too much, and who have difficulties feeling safe with others or accepting support.
As a complex thinker and feeler, I enjoy supporting people to sort out complex challenges. We all live in multiple systems of family, society, history, memory, and our dreams and inner callings, that contribute to who are. I understand the difficulty of claiming and finding your authentic path.
I am Asian American, born and raised in California. As an adult, I have also lived in Connecticut, New York, and Alaska. I am sensitive to issues of marginalization, belonging, navigating cultural and political differences, personality style, and family and intergenerational issues. I bring that to my work with you as well.
Other pieces about me: I helped design a somatic intervention and published research with the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, looking at nonverbal memory (implicit memory and emotional growth) for people with dementia. I am a former activist in Asian American issues. I am a certified ski instructor who has formerly taught autistic kids to ski.
I’d love to learn how I might support you. Let’s explore. I invite you to contact me.
Education
M.A. Counseling - Somatic Psychology
California Institute of Integral Studies
B.A. Sociology, Highest Honors
University of California - Berkeley
Wesleyan University
Short Term and Emotion Focused Dynamic Psychotherapy Training
Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) Core Training, Dr Allan Abbass & Dr Joel Towne, Toronto (online) currently enrolled
ISTDP Video Case Consultation, Dr, Dion Nowoweiski, ongoing.
Monthly ISTDP video small group consultation (3.5 hours), Dr John Rathauser, (online) May 2020 to present.
“Restructuring Fragility Using ISTDP”, Jon Frederickson, (online) March 2021.
ISTDP Immersion, “Reaching Through Resistance”, 3 days, Allan Abbass, San Diego ISTDP (online) Dec 2020.
ISTDP Immersion, “The Unconscious Therapeutic Alliance,” Allan Abbass, 3 days, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2019.
International Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy Conference, (Video training in dynamic psychotherapy), Boston, CA 2019.
Dynamic Emotion Focused Therapy (DEFT), Dr. Susan Warren Warshow, Level I Certification, Los Angeles, CA, monthly day-longs, 2018-2019.
AEDP & DEFT consultation, 2017-2019.
6 AEDP day-long seminars in a variety of clinical topics
Somatic Psychotherapy Training
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy for Trauma, Level I, Ame Cutler, Portland, OR, 2012-2013.
Psychophysical Therapy with Bill Bowen, 2009-2010
Inner Relationship Focusing, Levels I-V, Ann Weiser Cornell, 2001-2004
Developmental Somatic Psychotherapy Introduction, Ruella Frank, 2013
Supervision with Trainers in Various Somatic and Somatic Analytic Approaches including Formative Psychology, Somatic Experiencing & AEDP, and Somatic Psychodynamic Therapies
Embodied Oppression Workshops/Presentations
"Exploring Dominant and Submissive Roles through Body Awareness", (2 days) Merete Holm Brantbjerg, Founder, Moaiku Relational Trauma Therapy, 2016
"The Somato-Psychological Cost of Social Marginalization", Kurt Wagner
"Working with Embodied Oppression", Rae Johnson
"Social Justice Focused Psychodrama Techniques" (1 day), Leticia Nietto
Interpersonal Neurobiology - How Relationships Effect Physiology
Allan Schore Study Group, 6 months
Dan Siegal, Alan Fogel, Stephen Porges, Bruce Lipton,
Couples Therapy, Group and Systems Therapies
Emotional Focused Therapy (EFT) Externship, Sam Jinich, Nancy & Paul Aikin, and consultation.
“Working with High Conflict Couples,” Emotionally Focused Therapy, Rebecca Jorgensen
AEDP For Couples, (2 events), David Mars
Annual Psychoanalytic Couples Therapy Symposium 2017, 2018
NGGPS, Relational Gestalt Group Process (2 days)
Systems Centered Theory Study Group, Susan Gnatt (2 years)
Systems Centered Theory Foundation Training (12 days), Yvonne Agazarian and others
T Group Diversity Focus Group Intensive (4 days)
Intersubjective Relational Psychoanalysis Group Process (2 days)
TOUCH FOR PSYCHOTHERAPY AND TRAUMA
Kathy Kain - Touch for Psychotherapy I & II (8 days)
Kathy Kain - Somatic Resilience & Regulation After Early Trauma I & I, (8 days)
Dave Berger - Working with Traumatic Impact of Concussions (1 day)
Ariel Giaretto - Wisdom of the Womb: Perinatal & Ancestral Trauma (3 days)
Bill Bowen - Touch in Psychotherapy (1 year program) 2011
Pat Ogden- Hakomi Somatics for Bodyworkers, 2001
Donna Cerio - Intentional Touch(R) for Sexual Abuse Survivors, 2007
SOMATIC EDUCATION IN DEVELOPMENTAL MOVEMENT & LEARNING
Feldenkrais Method Certified Practitioner Training 1997-2000
Anat Baniel Method Mastery & Children's Training, 2003-2004
Body Mind Centering Workshops (Organs, Embodying the Heart, Righting Reflexes)
Workshops in Integrated Awareness(R), The Embodied Life(R), & Other Feldenkrais approaches to working with emotion and trauma, Continuum, etc.
SOMATIC DANCE MOVEMENT
Moving with Feeling (3 days) Zuza Engler, Soul Motion/Gestalt Awareness
Laban/Bartenieff Fundamentals (1 week), Peggy Hackney
Finding the Bones, Creative Process (4 days) Joe Goode
Laban Based Dance & Improvisation (4 days), Bill Evans
Blanche Evans Technique, Ann Krantz, PhD
Ongoing Conscious Dance and Movement Practices
Publications
Founder: CIIS Student Group, Diversity Perspectives in Embodiment, Hosting Speakers on Working with Race/Culture/Sexuality and Embodied Oppression in Somatic Psychology
Publication: Wu, E., Barnes, D. E., Ackerman, S. L., Lee, J., Chesney, M., & Mehling, W. E. (2014). Preventing Loss of Independence through Exercise (PLIÉ): qualitative analysis of a clinical trial in older adults with dementia, Aging & Mental Health, July, online.
Poster: “A Multi-Modal Somatic Exercise Program for Seniors with Dementia: a preliminary case study,” Presented at the Esther Thelen Dynamic Systems Research Symposium, San Francisco, CA, & United States Association for Body Psychotherapy Conference, Boulder, Colorado. August 2012.
Convener/Discussant, Somatic Psychotherapy in Japan and Other Asian Cultures, Dec 7, 2013 (3 hrs), speaker Takashi Kubo.
Panel Convener/Co-Participant, “Somatic Approaches to Race Based Traumatic Stress,” American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT)– Bay Area Student Conference, October 2012.
MEMBERSHIPS
International Experiential Dynamic Therapy Association
Intensive Short Term Dynamic Therapy - Northern CAL
International Association for Emotionally Focused Therapy
California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists
United States Association for Body Psychotherapy
Feldenkrais Guild of North America