Depth & Relational Psychotherapy
Oakland & East Bay
In-Office & Telehealth for California
Individual and couples therapy for people seeking greater understanding, stronger relationships, and meaningful change.
Christopher Sobky, LMFT
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”
-Carl Jung
Offerings
Individual Psychotherapy
People come to psychotherapy for many reasons. You may be facing a specific challenge; a relationship in difficulty, a loss, anxiety or depression, problems with substance use, stress at work, or a significant transition. You may notice yourself repeating patterns you understand intellectually but still cannot seem to change. Or your life may appear to be working reasonably well while something feels unsettled, disconnected, or simply not quite right. Sometimes what brings you to therapy is clear. At other times, you may only have a sense that something needs your attention.
These concerns matter in their own right, but they can also provide an access point into a deeper internal world. Anxiety, depression, conflict, dissatisfaction, or feeling stuck may tell us something about how you have learned to relate to yourself and others, what you have adapted to, what you may be avoiding or protecting, and parts of yourself that have not yet found sufficient expression. Rather than treating these experiences only as problems to eliminate, we can become curious about what they might reveal.
My approach is grounded in relational and depth-oriented psychotherapy. Together, we pay attention to what is happening in your life now while also exploring the patterns, relationships, personal history, beliefs, and less conscious forces that may be shaping your experience. We work to bring greater awareness to what has been operating automatically so that you have more freedom in how you respond—to relationships, difficult emotions, important decisions, and the direction of your life.
Therapy is collaborative and involves both insight and experience. Understanding yourself more deeply matters, but insight alone is not necessarily change. Our work is also about developing the capacity to remain with difficult experiences, encounter yourself and others differently, and experiment with ways of being that may not previously have felt possible.
The goal is not to become some perfected version of yourself or simply return to how things were before. It is to develop greater freedom, adaptability, and intention in how you live, to become more fully yourself and, potentially, to transform.
Couples Psychotherapy
Couples typically come to therapy because something between them no longer feels workable. You may find yourselves having the same argument repeatedly, struggling to communicate without becoming defensive or withdrawing, feeling increasingly distant, or trying to make sense of a specific event—a betrayal, loss, transition, substance use, or other rupture—that remains impactful and unresolved. Sometimes the question is how to repair the relationship. At other times, couples come because they are no longer certain what moving forward together should look like.
My approach to couples therapy honors the complexity of your relationship by looking beyond the immediate conflict to the deeper patterns shaping your dynamic. Rather than focusing only on what you are arguing about, we become curious about what happens between you: how each of you responds when you feel hurt, threatened, unseen, controlled, abandoned, or disappointed; what you have learned to expect from intimate relationships; and how your individual histories and beliefs continue to enter the relationship in the present.
This deeper work is grounded in a structural framework that also provides practical, actionable tools for communication and conflict. Insight alone does not necessarily change a relationship. Couples often need to develop greater capacity to tolerate difficult emotions, remain present with one another, communicate more directly, and interrupt familiar cycles before something different can emerge.
From there, we can clarify what each of you wants and what the relationship may require. For some couples, the work is about rebuilding trust and connection. For others, it involves discerning whether and how to remain together. When rebuilding is the goal, we draw upon existing strengths while developing new ones—working toward greater intimacy, shared meaning, and a more resilient and conscious partnership.
About Me
I am a licensed psychotherapist (LMFT) with an office off Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, California. I have been in clinical practice for more than two decades, working with individuals, couples, and families.
My approach to psychotherapy brings together relational therapy and depth-oriented perspectives, including existential, humanistic, and Jungian traditions, along with insights and techniques drawn from other therapeutic approaches. I am interested in how we relate to ourselves and others, the patterns that shape our lives, and the questions of meaning that arise along the way. Exploring these questions together can open possibilities for understanding and change. I listen for moments when growth feels possible and meet those moments with curiosity and authentic engagement, helping us explore what might come next.
In working with substance use, I take a practical, harm-reduction approach. We begin with your experience and goals, exploring the role substance use plays in your life, what needs it may be meeting, and where change might support your well-being. This can include recovery-oriented work when it fits your needs and direction. Substance use rarely happens in a vacuum, so our work also considers your relationships, circumstances, beliefs, and emotional life.
At the heart of my practice is the therapeutic relationship. The theories and techniques matter, but it is through the process we develop together that possibilities for change take shape.
Alongside my clinical work, I have spent many years in executive and clinical leadership in nonprofit community health, serving as an Executive and Co-Executive Director, Program Director, and Clinical Supervisor. I have also provided consultation and training to organizations, schools, government agencies, clinicians, and other professionals.
This experience also informs how I understand the lives of people carrying significant professional responsibility. If you are accustomed to being the person others rely on, making consequential decisions, navigating complicated relationships, or maintaining competence even when things feel less certain internally, I understand something about that terrain. Therapy can offer a different kind of space—one in which you do not always have to lead, manage the outcome, or have the answer.
I dual-majored in Psychology and Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and hold a master's degree in Clinical Psychology from San Francisco State University. I received my Marriage and Family Therapist license in 2010. My education is otherwise ongoing.
Raised in the Midwest and educated in the East, I have called the Bay Area home for more than 25 years. I am also the proud father of two sons making their way from adolescence into adulthood.
Specializations
Life Transitions & Individuation
We view periods of upheaval not merely as stressful disruptions to overcome, but as potential rites of passage. Changes in relationships, work, family roles, identity, or stage of life can unsettle the ways we have come to know ourselves. What once provided direction or stability may no longer fit, while what comes next is not yet clear.
These periods can be difficult and disorienting, but they can also create an opportunity to shed outgrown identities, become curious about what is emerging, and develop a more authentic relationship with yourself and your life.
Therapy can be a space that supports this process of emergence. Rather than rushing to restore what was, we can attend to what the disruption may be revealing and make room for something new to take shape. In depth psychology, this movement toward becoming more fully oneself is sometimes understood as individuation.
Recovery, Harm Reduction &
Substance Use
II have spent more than two decades working with people whose relationship with alcohol and other substances has become complicated, concerning, or harmful. Some people come to therapy knowing they want to make a significant change. Others are less certain, wondering whether their use is a problem or becoming curious about the role substances have come to play in their lives.
I do not believe that every difficult relationship with substances is best understood through the traditional addiction paradigm. My approach is grounded in harm reduction and begins with understanding your experience and goals. Together, we can attend honestly to consequences and risk while remaining curious about what substance use provides—relief, pleasure, connection, escape, regulation, or protection from experiences that may be difficult to approach in other ways.
For some, change means reducing use; for others, abstinence becomes important. Still others have already changed their substance use and find deeper questions waiting underneath. Psychotherapy offers an opportunity to explore not only what may need to change, but what the substance has been doing for you and what might need to develop in its place.
Existential & Identity
There are periods in life when the questions we face are not easily understood as symptoms to be resolved. Questions of meaning, identity, isolation, mortality, purpose, and belonging can emerge during transitions or loss, but they can also arise when a life that appears successful or stable no longer feels entirely one's own.
Psychotherapy can provide a place to engage these questions rather than quickly trying to quiet them. Feelings of anxiety, emptiness, uncertainty, or disconnection may sometimes point toward a deeper tension between the life we are living and something within us that has not yet found sufficient expression.
By approaching these experiences with curiosity and courage, we can explore what they may be asking of you. The aim is not to arrive at simple answers, but to develop a more conscious relationship with uncertainty, a clearer sense of what matters, and a way of living that feels increasingly meaningful and authentically your own.
Men’s Work
Men often come to therapy at moments when familiar ways of holding themselves together are no longer working. Divorce, the loss of a relationship or loved one, changes in work or fatherhood, aging, loneliness, or a growing uncertainty about meaning and direction can challenge deeply held ideas about strength, identity, and what it means to be a man.
I provide a space to look behind cultural and personal masks and become more curious about what has been difficult to acknowledge or express. This can mean developing access to a fuller range of emotion, learning to remain present with vulnerability and uncertainty, and exploring the ways anger, withdrawal, achievement, control, or self-reliance may both protect us and limit our capacity for intimacy.
The aim is not to replace one set of expectations about masculinity with another. It is to develop greater presence, emotional honesty, purpose, and the capacity to meet relationships and life's inevitable losses with greater depth—becoming more fully yourself rather than performing who you believe you are supposed to be.
Get In Touch
Ready to explore how I can support you and your goals?
Contact me to schedule a free and confidential consultation.
FAQs
Still have questions? Take a look at the FAQ or reach out anytime.
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Getting started is simple. Reach out through my contact form to schedule a free consultation call. Let’s see if we are a fit.
Alternatively, you can schedule a first full session.
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Individual sessions are 50 minutes.Couples sessions are 60 minutes.
Standard fee:
Individual - $250
Couples - $275Sliding fee:
Ethically, and in service to supporting access to psychotherapy for situations where affordability is an obstacle, I maintain a fixed number of situational sliding scale slots. Subject to availability, I make these slots available for weekly or twice per week psychotherapy only. Please inquire directly if you are strongly motivated and your primary obstacle is financial. I invite a conversation.
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Yes.
While there are some drawbacks to not meeting in person, I recognize that not everyone is able to commit to in person sessions. I can offer a hybrid model, in-person, or Telehealth. -
Consistency is an important ingredient for positive change. To this end, the time slot we agree upon is reserved only for you.
You are responsible for paying the agreed-upon fee for any session(s) you do not to cancel with at least 48 hours' notice. A cancellation notice should be left in my voicemail or email.
I will remain open to attempting to reschedule and try to accommodate needed session adjustments as my schedule allows. However, this may not always be possible.
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Currently, I am an out-of-network provider. This is a professional and ethical choice I make for my own well-being.
Many insurance plans now include out-of-network benefits, and I can provide a superbill each month for reimbursement. Please verify your coverage with your insurance company. If you are uncertain about how to proceed, I am willing to speak to you directly in consult.