Hi there.
My name is Miranda Becker (they/she). I earned my Masters degree in Counseling Psychology from the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California and hold licenses to practice therapy in the states of California (LMFT #148778) and New York (LMFT #002646).
Before entering this field, I worked in politics and advocacy. I continue to view mental health and resilience as deeply intertwined with social justice — both because injustice creates trauma, and because our determination to heal can elevate both ourselves and our larger communities.
As with many others in this profession, I came to this field through my own healing journey. I was lucky enough to have caring people there for me when I needed it most, and I hope to be able to do the same for others.
My previous counseling experience primarily focused on working with LGBTQIA+ clients, and as someone who identifies as queer and gender fluid, it has been a great honor to be able to give back to my community. However, I am excited to connect with individuals from many other communities as well.
How May I Help?
It takes a lot of courage to admit that something isn’t working; that it’s time to change how you’re approaching life.
Therapy is an opportunity for us to get curious about your experiences, as well as about how to incorporate more tenderness into your interactions with yourself. Here are some specific ways that I can help:
My specialty areas include:
Trauma and abuse recovery, including addressing C-PTSD
Growing your intuition, self-empowerment, and self-compassion
Anxiety, panic, and chronic stress
Perfectionism
Self-confidence
People-pleasing, enmeshment, and codependency
Boundary-setting
Addressing the impact of oppressive systems around us, including capitalism, white supremacy, colonialism, patriarchy, and religious institutions
Working with LGBTQIA+ folks
My specialty styles include:
Depth-work and Shadow-work
Spirituality and pulling from the wisdom of the Earth
Ancestral work, including exploring intergenerational themes and dynamics within your family of origin
Honoring the ways in which Sorrow helps us to slow down and feel deeply
Accessing and harnessing Sacred Rage
Additionally: the modalities listed below
My approaches
I believe the key to therapeutic healing comes down to three primary components:
Self-Trust (Intuition), Self-Empowerment, and Self-Compassion.
My work focuses primarily around helping clients build these three pillars of healing within themselves. I take a gentle, nonjudgmental approach that is based around meeting you where you are and accepting you how you are.
Our conversations together will be deeply strengths-based, because it’s always worth reminding you that you have many wonderful qualities — perhaps even more than you knew! I also have a warm sense of humor and enjoy injecting that into our conversations. Even though we do talk about hard things, we can also take some moments to laugh!
I approach from a holistic perspective that incorporates several therapeutic schools of thought. These include Rogerian therapy (sometimes called Humanism or Person-Centered), Attachment theory (exploring relational patterns from your family and childhood), Internal Family Systems (IFS) parts-work, and Somatic work.
Below, you can learn more about each of these:
-
The body holds so many memories of experiences we’ve been through, even if we’ve consciously pushed those memories to the side. Tapping into the body can help you reconnect with your vitality, intuition, truth, and power.
Using Somatic work can look like slowing down and quietly listening to notice what experiences the body is having - whether that’s physical, emotional, or even memory-based.
It can also look like treating the body as a trusted friend, companion, and teammate - even asking for its advice or perspectives on situations. People are often surprised to learn how helpful the body’s messages are and how willing it is to speak.
-
We are all multifaceted, often contradictory beings - wanting or feeling many different things at the same time. I frequently use the animated films Inside Out (1 & 2) to illustrate this point!
By acknowledging the complex inner sides of yourself, you can start feeling in charge of your own life and gain a deeper sense of self-compassion and self-acceptance along the way.
Much like with Somatics, we can also begin to engage in interactive dialogues with the various different parts (or emotions), learning how they came to have the perspectives they do, and what advice they have for us going forward.
Using IFS or parts-work can often look like reframing these inner contradictions or conflicts as an opportunity to conduct our own internal couples counseling or family therapy - hence the approach’s title of “Internal Family Systems.”
-
Attachment theory is about recognizing connections between how you were treated in childhood - especially by caregivers - and how you show up in relationships today. It gives us the opportunity for deep exploration into how to build safer, more secure attachment to ourselves and others by healing wounds from the past.
Using Attachment Theory means we will likely be talking about your family of origin, what your relationships were like there, and what messages or lessons you internalized from them - whether those lessons were explicitly handed to you or not.
This approach gives us the opportunity to get curious about which familial patterns or cycles you’d like to continue enacting, and which you’re ready to change. Combined with Somatics and/or Parts-work (IFS), it can also help show us which relational wounds need our attention in order to heal.
-
Rogerian therapy follows the principles of a therapist and researcher named Carl Rogers. His basic philosophy has been validated many, many times by studies conducted over the past 70-odd years.
This philosophy is: compassion and authenticity are the keys to healing. And this starts with the relationship you build with your therapist.
Rogers demonstrated that when our therapists meet us with kindness, understanding, and non-judgmentalness — while grounded into their own authenticity — it creates a special kind of safety for our nervous systems. This, in turn, allows us to evolve into a gentler, more self-aligned version of ourselves. And that, in and of itself, can really change many things!
How do sessions work?
Coming to therapy can feel like taking a big risk at first: it’s a plunge into the unknown, and also into some things we know (but maybe don’t always want to face). It’s a place to explore, dive deep, process, and — most importantly — form a safe, healing way of relating to others.
While you go on this journey, I hope you can see me as a Fellow Traveler walking the path alongside you. I can’t do the work for you, but I can remind you that you’re not alone.
When working with me, ideally you will feel you have someone in your corner, who accepts you as you are, sees you with full compassion, and can empathetically connect with you, no matter.
Over time, I will guide you to tenderly notice, honor, and accept your full range of emotions, including ones we often turn away from.
All sides of you are valid and worthwhile, and they have a story to share. By listening to these stories, you can heal those sides of you that have remained trapped in pain from the past.