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Meet Rachel

I'm a Marriage and Family Therapist with an array of interests. Originally from Southern California, I moved to Austin in 2000 to study math at the University of Texas. I spent the next few years studying Spanish, French, drawing and jazz dance while exploring careers in customer service, hospitality and administration. I knew that I had something to contribute to the world; I just needed to figure out what my calling was.

In 2008 I wound up in Corpus Christi, Texas earning a master's degree in math from Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi. To supplement my student income I spent most of my three years on the Gulf Coast working for a Texas State Representative as a constituent liaison, and I realized that as much as I enjoyed the world of numbers, my passion lay in helping people. I graduated with a master of arts in counseling from Saint Edward's University in 2013 and have since been grateful every day for manifesting my potential as a therapist.

As a post-graduate associate at Austin Family Institute I studied narrative therapy, an approach to counseling that encourages clients to view experiences as stories that we tell ourselves and that, as a result, assign meaning to the behaviors that we exhibit ourselves and witness in others. The goal of narrative therapy is to free ourselves from rigid, unhelpful stories about our lives and discover productive and empowering ways to interact with the world around us. I was so inspired by this approach that I continue to apply it to my professional work today, helping my clients discover new ways to define themselves and live fuller lives. My goals in therapy are awareness, acceptance, and empowerment. 

When I'm not working with clients, I can be found knitting, thrift store shopping, and dancing. Once in a while, I still work as a math tutor to satisfy the analytic side of my personality. Someday, I hope to take a painting class.