Katja Ahlstrom
Marriage Family Therapist Intern

Katja is a marriage family therapist intern, and a mother of two. She lived in Germany the first twenty years of her life, which gives her a unique perspective and adds to her multicultural awareness. Katja struggled with anorexia in her teen years and overcame it by finding expression in the Arts, hence her first degree in Theatre Arts. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a Masters in Clinical Psychology, which she received from Antioch University of Los Angeles. Katja completed her traineeship at Inland Aids Project in San Bernardino, California and further gained experience in working with grief clients at hospice of San Luis Obispo.

Katja has an interest in the humanistic approaches of Carl Rogers and Eugene Gendlin, and is finding a way to incorporate Gendlin’s focusing oriented psychotherapy with some of the cognitive behavioral approaches already practiced with the eating disorder population.  This is intended to help shift their experience of their eating disorder over time, such that it doesn’t have the same grip on their emotions. Furthermore, Katja is hoping to inspire clients by integrating art, movement and drama into individual as well as group psychotherapy.