Therapy begins with feeling heard, understood, and respected. Michiko creates a warm, empathetic, and collaborative space where clients can explore their experiences, build on their strengths, and move toward meaningful change.

 

With more than 25 years of clinical experience, Michiko has worked with adolescents, adults, and families navigating anxiety, depression, relationship and communication challenges, workplace stress, parenting, divorce, life transitions, and adjustment to new personal or cultural environments.

 

From 2021 to 2026, Michiko served as Director of the Counseling Department at a residential high school. In this role, she supported adolescents and families within a complex school community and collaborated closely with medical, health, residential, teaching, and school leadership teams to provide timely, thoughtful, and comprehensive care.

 

Michiko’s approach is integrative and humanistic, drawing from cognitive-behavioral, psychodynamic, supportive, and other evidence-based approaches. She tailors treatment to each client’s needs, personality, strengths, and goals, with particular attention to self-awareness, emotional well-being, communication, and relationships.

 

Cultural sensitivity is central to Michiko’s work. Having lived across cultures and worked in a bicultural, bilingual international boarding-school environment, she understands the ways language, identity, family, and cultural experience can shape how people see themselves and connect with others. Bilingual in Japanese and English, Michiko offers counseling in either language, helping clients express themselves in the way that feels most natural and comfortable.

 

Michiko believes that each person has inner strengths and resources that can be rediscovered and nurtured through therapy. Her goal is to help clients gain insight, develop new perspectives, and feel more grounded, confident, and connected in their lives.