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Individual Therapy · Palo Alto & Telehealth

Individual
therapy
in Palo Alto.

For adults who've done everything right — and still feel like something essential is missing.

AetnaWellfleetStanford SHIP
About Shawn
Therapy office, Palo Alto
What Brings People Here

Something isn't working.
You can't quite name it.

“You can't have a choice about what you are not in touch with.” — Moshe Feldenkrais That's the thing about depth work: the goal isn't information. It's contact.

The presenting problem is rarely the real problem. The anxiety that won't respond to mindfulness apps. The relationship dynamic that keeps repeating. The flatness you've been calling stress, that doesn't quite feel like stress.

How I Work

Present, relational,
body-aware.

Individual therapy with me is depth-oriented and relational. Not a technique applied to a problem — a genuine encounter between two people paying close attention to what actually arises. I try to stay with what is present rather than move it along — attending carefully, open to outcomes rather than directing toward them.

I draw from Relational Gestalt therapy, psychoanalytic thinking, ACT, mindfulness, and somatic approaches.

The therapeutic relationship itself is the medium. I attend to what arises between us — in the body, in the room — not just to the narrative account of your life.

The frameworks I draw from aren't a menu. They're a sensibility — a way of attending to what's actually happening between us, rather than applying a theory to it.

Relational GestaltPresent-moment awareness, awareness as living practice, genuine contact.
Depth & Psychoanalytic ThinkingThe recurring figures, the internal patterns, the parts that haven't had language yet.
ACT & ValuesMoving toward what actually matters, not just away from what hurts.
Somatic AwarenessThe body holds what the mind hasn't processed. We pay attention to where the tension lives.

“Change occurs when one becomes what he is, not when he tries to become what he is not.”— Arnold Beisser

Sometimes the pattern that shows up in individual work is most alive in a partnership. Couples therapy addresses that directly.

Explore couples therapy →

How to begin

Currently accepting new clients
01

Free 15-min consultation

A brief conversation to see if this feels right. No commitment. I'm listening for what brought you here, not the structured version of it.

02

First session

An unhurried intake — your history, what brings you here, how you make sense of things.

03

Ongoing weekly work

Weekly 50-minute sessions. The work develops its own rhythm.

Before you reach out

CBT and similar approaches work at the level of thoughts and behaviors — genuinely useful for many things. Depth-oriented therapy works at the level of the patterns underneath: why the same thoughts keep returning, what the body is holding that the mind hasn't caught up to yet.

Yes — in-network with Aetna, Wellfleet, and Stanford University SHIP. Monthly superbills for other PPO plans. Many plans reimburse 50–80% after deductible.

I'm listening for what you say and how you say it — where the energy shifts, what seems hard to name. That first conversation is less an intake and more a first contact.

Weekly is the standard, especially at the start. Consistency matters for depth work — it builds the kind of trust and continuity that allows real material to surface.

Yes. In-person at 667 Lytton Ave, Suite #9, Palo Alto. Telehealth throughout California.

Your Therapist

Present, curious,
unhurried.

I work with people who are capable, thoughtful, and stuck — people who have tried the obvious things and found them insufficient. What they're looking for is usually not another technique. It's a different kind of conversation.

My training at California Institute of Integral Studies, combined with residential practice at Plum Village, gives me a framework that takes the whole person seriously: body, psyche, and the relational field between us.

Full Biography
Shawn Walters, therapist

Ready to begin a different
kind of conversation?

A brief message is enough to start.

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