Therapy for the patterns beneath the surface.
Depth-oriented psychotherapy for individuals and couples navigating relationships, trauma, identity, ambition, and change.
Welcome, I’m Stef Palumbo
DEPTH-ORIENTED • PSYCHODYNAMIC • TRAUMA-INFORMED • CULTURALLY ATTUNED
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My first career was in startups, and I eventually founded my own company. Business was familiar territory for me.
In my early twenties, multiple family members got cancer diagnoses around the same time. It was a shock to my system and landed me into therapy for the first time. I ultimately lost my father, and that experience changed the direction of my life. I began questioning everything, reassessing what mattered, and became increasingly drawn to psychology and spirituality.
I stayed in business for a while because it was familiar, but over time the pull toward this work became undeniable. After another series of life events that stopped me in my tracks, I made the decision to return to graduate school and turn a longstanding passion into a profession. It was a major career and financial decision, but I trusted it was the right one.
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I believe every person has an inner source of wisdom, resilience, and direction. People are often stronger than they realize, not because life has been easy, but because they have internal resources that can be cultivated and trusted.
Many of us lose connection with our authentic selves through painful experiences, family expectations, relationships, cultural pressures, or simply the demands of modern life. Therapy can be an enriching space to find your way.
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I don’t view pain as a design flaw. It is part of being human. What matters is how we allow our experiences to inform and transform us. This is not about bypassing suffering. We have to feel what is here, make space for it, and move through that stage rather than skipping over it.
People often enter therapy because something hurts, feels stuck, or needs to change. I see those moments as invitations to pay attention and realign more authentically. I also believe life has a way of knocking on our door until we learn the lesson at hand — we can do the work now or if not, there will be another opportunity. Your choice.
We are participants in our lives, with more agency than we often realize.
Stef is a Registered Associate Marriage & Family Therapist #163450, employed by Core Insight Psychology and supervised by Lyra Matin, Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist #126563.
What Brings You Here?
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Trauma + C-PTSD
Patterns formed through difficult experiences can continue long after the experience itself has passed.
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High Achievers & Over-Functioners
For people who are exceptionally good at functioning—and tired of always having to.
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Dating, Attachment & Relationships
Understand the patterns shaping who you choose, how you attach, and what happens when intimacy gets close.
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Cross-Cultural Identity & Intercultural Relationships
For individuals and couples navigating culture, belonging, family expectations, and life between worlds.
book a
complimentary
consult callIndividual Therapy
A space to understand yourself more deeply, and change the patterns that keep repeating.
Couples Therapy
More than learning to communicate better. We look at the deeper patterns underneath conflict, distance, intimacy, and connection.
MY CREDENTIALS
I received a Master’s Degree in Clinical Counseling with an Emphasis in Depth Psychology and Marriage and Family Therapy from Pacifica Graduate Institute.
I completed my clinical training at Maple Counseling in Beverly Hills, where I worked with children, families, and parents, and at Liberation Institute in San Francisco, where I provided telehealth therapy to adults and couples.
My work is grounded in depth-oriented and Jungian psychology, with particular focus on trauma and C-PTSD, relationships and attachment, intercultural couples and cross-cultural identity, and high achievers and over-functioners. My published thesis research, The Globalization of Love: Culture, Identity, and the Future of Mating, reflects my longstanding interest in how culture and identity shape relationships.
I am trained in Brainspotting (BSP), a brain-based modality that accesses and processes trauma held in the subcortical brain. My trauma-informed work also draws from Somatic Experiencing, Inner Child Work, and Internal Family Systems (IFS), integrating attention to the emotional, somatic, and relational dimensions of healing. I am also a Certified Jungian Coach through the C.G. Jung Centre. In my work with children and families, I have training in Child-Centered Play Therapy (CCPT). Through mentorship I have additional experience in Shamanic Hypnotherapy and Inner Journey Work.
In couples therapy, I draw from Relational Life Therapy (Terry Real) and the Gottman Method, offering a balanced approach that supports deeper pattern understanding and meaning, relational repair and the development of practical skills.
Across all of my work, I integrate a continuous dialogue with the unconscious, Gestalt therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Family Systems theory, and depth-oriented practices such as dreamwork, active imagination, sandplay, and shadow work.
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