Supportive depth-oriented psychotherapy to achieve lasting, meaningful change.
”I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”
Carl Gustav Jung
Dr. Walda helps people find insight and clarity in their lives.
I work well with people from a wide range of cultures, ethnicities, and socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as people from a variety of sexual and gender orientations. My patients are often college students who want to sort through and make sense of past experiences with their families, or people just setting out on a new phase in life. They are often people in mid-life, perhaps considering a career change, going back to school, or relocating to a new area. They might have a problem in a significant relationship.
Some of my clients are grappling with the death of a loved one – sometimes by accident, homicide, or suicide – and this loss may have happened recently or even a very long time ago. Many of my clients had a difficult or painful childhood and want a psychotherapist who can support them in coming to terms with experiences of abuse or neglect. Others may come from immigrant families that have suffered tremendously due to adverse political conditions, or struggle with adjusting to a new language or country. Some of those I work with suffer from chronic pain or illness. Still others may find life in a fast-changing world to be overwhelming.
The Work
We will work collaboratively to explore your relationships to self, others, and the world to build awareness of how the dynamics underlying these connections contribute to your unique way of being and experiencing life.
Through an insight- and depth-oriented approach, together we will identify patterns that may either help or hinder you in attaining your goals. This process can involve examining language, imagery, dreams, or whatever your particular kind of creativity may be. Significant memories and aspects of your life history will also come to the fore to gain insight into the workings of the psyche. Together, we will embark on a path of understanding how to integrate various and disparate aspects of your experience into a meaningful whole.
By developing greater insight you will find meaning and purpose, and envision new ways of seeing and being to allow your truest self to unfold.
My office is located in the small coastal city of Arcata in Humboldt County, Northern California.
I offer confidential online Telehealth services to residents of this region and to the entire State of California.
My areas of interest and specialization, and the kinds of people I work with, include:
• Adults 18 and over
• Elders (65+)
• Recently bereaved adults
• Couples
Dr. Viktoria Walda grew up in Los Angeles and has lived on the East Coast, in the American South, and in Europe. She holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology with an emphasis in depth psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute; an M.A. in applied linguistics from California State University, Los Angeles; and a B.A. in cultural anthropology from the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Dr. Walda's professional background includes work in education, public health, publishing, social justice activism, and the arts. She now resides in the redwood forest along the coast of Northern Humboldt County in California. With training in psychoanalytic psychology and Jungian analysis, Dr. Walda approaches her work from a place of curiosity and genuine care, acknowledging the importance of every aspect of one's life experience and the necessity of providing individualized treatment.
Some concepts underlying Dr. Walda’s work…
…you have the capacity to change.
Although many ways of thinking, perceiving, and responding to the world are deeply ingrained – habits that no longer serve can be difficult to shift; old wounds have become hardened scars – we believe that with intention and support, you can reinvigorate your life path and move toward transformation. The psychoanalytic psychologist Carl G. Jung called this approach “individuation.”
…the surfaces have depths.
Depth-oriented psychotherapy probes beneath the exterior that helps you to manage the demands of daily life to address deeply held emotional patterns. These patterns can inhibit emotional growth and steer the course of many of life's dimensions in ways outside of your awareness. While you may not be experiencing immediate challenges and feel that you are leading a healthy and productive life, nevertheless, you may feel that life could be even richer and more meaningful. In doing deep inner psychological work, you may not only begin to heal unconscious psychic wounds, but delight as well in discovering the possibilities for living your unique life to its fullest.
…neither your past nor your problems define you.
While you may have had experiences that cause lingering pain, these effects are not insurmountable. Depth therapy helps you to understand both how life’s challenges have shaped you, alongside how you relate to other people and react to situations in the present. It can help you to recognize how prior adversities and painful wounds can be meaningfully integrated and accepted as part of your multi-faceted character. The integration of past and present facilitates a process of emotional maturation and the emergence of a sense of wholeness.
…everything is connected.
Jung developed the concept of the collective unconscious, or a transpersonal realm, in which archetypal events and experiences connect everyone. This means that human beings share many of the same kinds of experiences, universally. It also means that the body and mind are connected. In doing the inner work, it is possible to explore your dreams, fantasies, feelings, and bodily or physical experiences in the context of your sense of being a part of a broader existence. It also suggests that all beings coexist as part of a larger natural world.
…relationship matters.
Analytic depth work fosters the emergence of an atmosphere of trust in which deeply personal and sensitive material can be safely explored. Emphasis is placed on building an honest dialogue and an alliance between psychotherapist and patient.
…creativity is life-affirming.
Recognizing untapped creative potential in yourself can be paramount to analytic work. Each person has a unique imagination and the capacity for some form of creativity, which can take many forms.
…diversity matters.
The human family is vast. We value mutual regard, inclusion, respectful dialogue, and humility.