Ingrid Tsong is a Northern California therapist and a member of the Center for Mindful Psychotherapy collective. Her talent lies in looking at the client from an integral, holistic perspective to offer healing not just for the problem you might immediately find yourself facing but also for broader, deeper growth. If you’re not entirely sure that you want to be in therapy, but you think that possibly it could help you, then she might be the right therapist for you. Learn more about her work in this therapist interview.
Where is your office located?
My office is in the historic Chambaud Building in Healdsburg, CA, 15 minutes north of Santa Rosa in beautiful Sonoma County.
I do in person, telehealth, and play and sand tray therapy in my space, and would love to invite you to join me, in person or virtually!
What is your therapeutic orientation?
I offer authentic, relational, culturally empathic healing insight with a depth perspective. What does that mean? I take everything and everyone in your life into account when working together, from an integral, client centered, multicultural perspective, to find the healing you are seeking for you and your family. Depth means that I help you explore the unconscious patterns of your thought process in our work together.
What are your areas of specialty?
I like to think that my specialty is being able to show up for my clients who show up with their imperfect messy lives and see all of them without judgment, not just the problem that brought them to me.
And I also understand that finding a therapist often happens during a tipping point in life where it seems too difficult to figure things out on your own. So, in that case, I find purpose in being helpful in the following areas:
- Anxiety
- Trauma/PTSD
- Parenting
- Life Transitions
- Existential questions/ Purpose seeking
- Women’s issues- fertility, pregnancy, partnership
- Conscious partnership
What other modalities inform your work?
I have a certificate of professional coaching from Leadership That Works, and was in a corporate executive role myself for a number of years, which allows me to step into a goal-oriented and pragmatic space when called upon by my clients.
I believe whole-heartedly that what needs to show up in session will and does. I guess I would call it a faith based practice born from years of my personal therapy, as well as my experience in the therapeutic space with my clients where healing can be accessed through the most unexpected starting points.
What is it like to work with you?
I am warm, enthusiastic, and authentic, and I like to believe I share that energetically with my clients. I bring a strengths based approach to my work, and I love supporting clients in realizing their patterns and themes that arise from our work together. I think they would say that even when I bring up the difficult things in session, I do it with kindness and caring, and when appropriate, laughter and humor.
Who do you LOVE working with?
I love working with people who are trying to figure out why they don’t feel better even though they have everything they ever thought they wanted. I love working with people who are in a transition in life, whether it is a young person launching into their adulthood, a professional embarking on a more meaningful mid-life, a couple trying to improve their path together, or a grieving spouse looking into the next unexpected chapter of her life.
I ALSO love working with people who feel like they are in the “minority” or “left out” in the world. My experience as a child of immigrants and a person of color has indelibly influenced and oriented my work with BIPOC and other marginalized groups.
I love working with people who don’t know if they want to be in therapy. I know that what therapists’ offer is sacred and profound, and I love to be able to reveal that truth to my clients.
What inspires you about this work?
Each person I meet in this work has such a rich, unique, and deeply felt experience of the world. It is such an honor when a client will share something they have never shared with anyone else before. I feel the weight of the responsibility and sacredness of this offering, and the significance of the work is deeply meaningful to me.
What do you do outside of this work to stay inspired?
I hang out with my almost- 4 year old daughter, and her clear eyed and magical take on the world is a great joy for me. I love love love spending time with my friends and family having dinner together, or a beach day. Time in and on the water is super healing for me, and we have recently realized we have a couple of great paddleboarding options within 10 minutes of us incredible!
Best job (or most interesting job) before becoming a therapist?
I was a retail clothing buyer for many years before becoming a therapist! While I changed careers to answer my calling, I did love the creative energy that I was lucky enough to be surrounded by at work. I bring my love of aesthetic beauty to my office space.
Therapist Ingrid Tsong’s Sonoma County office
Therapist Recommendations
Sonoma County therapist Ingrid Tsong recommends:
Recommendation for managing moments of overwhelm:
Limit external stimulus. Put down the phone, close your eyes, try to find a quiet spot, and breathe, breathe, breathe.
Recommendation: for the best place to cry in the bay area
On a quiet trail in the woods, my current favorite is Riverfront Park in Sonoma County
Recommendation: for the best place to find a laugh in the bay area:
The Bay Area Discovery Museum- if you go alone and watch the little kids who are there, someone will do something silly and spontaneous, two key ingredients to laughter!
Recommendation: for self care practice on a budget:
Donation based online yoga with Rusty Wells. Movement and laughter, it cheers me up every time!
Recommendation: for self care practice investment:
I took a Transcendental Meditation course many years ago that changed the way I meditated. I still do it daily to this day, and I do feel a quiet, fundamental shift from the practice over time.
Favorite non-therapy book:
I love beautiful coffee table books about visual artists or beautiful homes in far reaching places.
Favorite self-help book/ therapy book:
US by Terrence Real
Favorite quote:
I want to unfold. I don’t want to be folded anywhere, because where I am folded, there I am a untrue. – Rainer Marie Rilke.
What are some things you have in the works right now?
I am very interested in the work of Terence Real. I think his approach to couple therapy and breaking through the patriarchy speaks passionately to my own interest in being relational and also understands the systemic pressures that keep us out of our most fulfilling relationships. I plan on doing his course as soon as my schedule allows!
I am a Teaching Assistant at my alma mater the California Institute of Integral Studies this semester. Revisiting the rich history of this field and sharing my love of learning the art of therapy has been more fulfilling than I expected, and I am immensely enjoying the opportunity to work with and inspire the next generation of therapists!
Anything else? Closing words or something about who you are/ how you identify that you would like to share?
I came to this path in mid-life with the desire to offer the transformative experience that I received myself in individual therapy. Therapy changed my life and gave me the courage to be the self I have always wanted to be. I am the child of first generation immigrants, a former city dweller, a farmer’s wife, a fertility assisted mother, half of a bi-cultural partnership, truth seeker and friend. The opportunity to support someone in their life’s experience is the honor of this work for me.
How Can People Contact You?
Name: Ingrid Tsong, MA, Registered Associate MFT
License #: 110930
Supervisor: Lani Lee, LMFT #51375
Phone number: 707-339-8250
Website: www.ingridtsong.com and www.mindfulcenter.org
Email: [email protected]
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