Welcome, and thank you for visiting my website. Whether you are struggling with a personal issue or problem, interested in relationship therapy, or ready to explore the possibility of deep psychological transformation, I am committed to providing a safe, open, and caring environment for you or your loved one to do psychological work.
Each of us may begin psychotherapy for different reasons; some are faced with an immediate crisis or traumatic experience, while others may be experiencing painful symptoms of depression, anxiety, loneliness, addictive behavior, anger, or grief. Couples may seek therapy to resolve relationship issues or to gain a solid foundation for the future. Many individuals seek to explore more existential but no less important questions of meaning, identity, sexuality, spirituality, philosophy, gender issues, psychology, politics and power. All of these are excellent reasons for taking up work in depth psychotherapy.
I am currently seeing patients via telehealth only. If you would like to schedule a session or have any questions, call or text me today at (657) 217-1141 or email me at jmsandovalphd@gmail.com. You may also leave a message on this website here.
*** If you are having a psychiatric emergency, please call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room. Do not attempt to access emergency care through this website. ***
Dr. Sandoval provides psychological services and education to individuals and couples via telehealth. Discussion groups and classes are also available. Please inquire for details.
Jungian Psychology
Jungian Psychology
C.G. Jung famously said, "I would rather be whole than good." This idea, in its myriad forms, is the foundation for successful psychodynamic therapy. Wholeness, or experiencing oneself as fully genuine and expressed, is recognized as the foundation of psychological health. Symptoms such as depression, loneliness, anxiety, grief, unwanted behaviors, or problems in relationships are viewed not merely as negative experiences to be done away with. Rather, they may reflect unconscious (unknown) parts of ourselves that need our attention. Painful symptoms may underlie a frustrated longing to know and discern one's true self or calling in life, for example. Psychodynamic therapy addresses both symptoms and the unconscious thoughts that give rise to them through an honest dialogue between the ego (one's constructed persona) and the non-ego or genuine self.
Vocatus atqua non vocatus deus aderit. (Called or not called, God is present.)
-Carved over the door of Jung's Kuessnacht home
Archetypal Psychology
Archetypal Psychology
Archetypal Psychology grew out of Jung's ideas and focuses on the notion of what James Hillman called "soul-making" as a primary component of therapeutic work. But here we are speaking not of soul in a spiritual or metaphysical sense; soul is not seen as a substantiated "thing" but rather as the very essence and exhilaration of life itself - what we experience when we are confronted by deep love, profound beauty, art, adventure, poetry and literature, major life events, global history, and world cultures. Archetypal psychology provides a perspective, a way of seeing. This perspective is committed to imagining problems metaphorically rather than literally: it strives to see through the obvious
“Love alone is not enough. Without imagination, love stales into sentiment, duty, boredom. Relationships fail not because we have stopped loving but because we first stopped imagining.” - James Hillman
Psychology as the Discipline of Interiority
The study of psychology as the discipline of interiority (PDI), developed by Wolfgang Giegerich, extends both Jung's and Hillman's ideas about soul into the realm of thought proper. Soul, according to Giegerich, is the mutual and interdependent process of the authentic unfolding of one’s own life and life at large. This unfolding is intelligent in that it has a logic to it, as one can see if one looks back throughout history (including one’s own lifetime). From this perspective, neurosis is seen as the resistance to the logical unfolding of soul - or of the ego’s refusal of becoming conscious of itself. The practice of psychology as the discipline of interiority entails a rigorous dialectical discourse that often culminates in a radical re-orientation of one's initial perspective and identity.
"In the deepest sense we exist not as organism, but as soul or Geist."
-Wolfgang Giegerich
Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas.
(I love Plato, but I love the truth more. -Socrates)
-A favorite saying of Dr. Giegerich
NOTICE TO CONSUMERS: The Department of consumer affair's board of psychology receives and responds to questions and complaints regarding the practice of psychology. If you have questions or complaints, you may contact the board by email at bopmail@dca.ca.gov, on the Internet at www.psychology.ca.gov, by calling 1-866-503-3221, or by writing to the following address: Board of Psychology, 1625 North Market Boulevard, Suite N-215, Sacramento, California 95834.