Santiago Diaz – MA
Doctoral Intern
Santi Diaz (he/him) is a doctoral intern who is currently working towards a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the Pacifica Graduate Institute. He approaches therapy from a depth perspective, emphasizing psychodynamic, relational, and Jungian theory. Santi believes that both healing and suffering arise from unconscious processes that can be addressed once we are made aware of them, through the discussion of thoughts, feelings, behaviors, dreams, and relationships. Through the development of safety and trust in the therapeutic relationship, Santi helps clients develop their ability to understand, communicate, and then meaningfully address experiences that bring about suffering. This allows the client to engage in transformative change in a way that is not only relevant to their unique circumstance, but is rooted in the client’s unique experiences, challenges, and desires.
Previous experiences for Santi include working with adults and adolescents with a history of interpersonal challenges in familial or peer relationships, chronic depression and anxiety, complex trauma, challenges regulating emotion states, or altered-state experiences such as nightmares, hallucinations, delusions, or manic episodes. Additionally, Santi has worked with adults and adolescents experiencing these symptoms for the first time, due to the challenges of adjusting to an abrupt change in one’s life, such as a change in relationship, job, school, or living situation, a traumatic event, and/or the loss of a loved one.
As a depth-oriented psychotherapist, Santi works with clients to reflect on their experience, including traumatic experiences, thoughts, and emotions that arise, but also what lies underneath these, including past experiences, figures, and beliefs. Santi aims to create a space for clients to begin understanding themselves in new ways and then to support them in bringing that understanding into other areas of their life using talk, play, art, and sometimes movement. As no two individuals are alike, a depth-oriented treatment approach is tailored to the uniqueness of each therapeutic relationship.
*This provider is supervised by a licensed mental health professional.
