Services
About My Clients
I love working with young-adult, middle-aged, and older adult clients in the midst of life transitions such as choosing a vocation or exploring their sexual/cultural/racial identities. I specialize in religious trauma--for people who've left fundamentalist churches or spiritual groups. I work with queer and questioning folks and support people going through cultural transitions (third-culture kids, expats, and global nomads).
My Background and Approach
Dr. Coco Owen has an M.A. in comparative literature from UCLA and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology (cultural psychology emphasis) from Alliant University. She did a predoctoral internship at the University of Oregon Counseling Center and worked as a therapist at Reed College (Portland, OR) She is a licensed psychologist in California and Hawai'i, and can see anyone residing in those states via telehealth. Combining the imagination of a published poet with the skills of a clinical psychologist, Dr. Coco is an engaged, active listener. Her goal is to reduce current distress and enhance your passion and sense of purpose. Dr. Coco uses trauma-informed, insight-oriented, IFS, and Jungian approaches to deepen every conversation. This provides a through-line of inquiry across sessions. To help you feel better in the short-term, Dr. Coco draws on cognitive-behavioral therapy, mindfulness, and strengths-based skills of positive psychology.
My Personal Beliefs and Interests
Having grown up in a fundamentalist church (Seventh-day Adventism) and walked a painful road of reconstruction, I'm passionate about supporting others who've suffered adverse religious experiences or religious trauma recover their own identity, agency, sexuality, and values. I love working with secular, agnostic/atheist, spiritual-but-not-religious, or spiritually questioning folks, and am also familiar with Buddhist, yogic/tantric, and other non-traditional spiritual traditions such as shamanism. I have lived abroad, am in an intercultural marriage, and did my dissertation research on international students' acculturation and perceptions of discrimination. These academic and life experiences inspire my work with people in cultural transition, third-culture kids, or expats living abroad. I'm also a published poet and am very versed in the dynamics of helping people establish and maintain a creative practice and dovetailing this with one's personal, therapeutic journey.