Individual Therapy in San Jose
Therapy for the person you've been carrying — and the one you're becoming.
Weekly 45-minute sessions · Secure video sessions · Serving San Jose residents and clients across California
Individual therapy for the rhythms of life in San Jose.
San Jose is a city where two highly capable people can be deeply in love and still find themselves living parallel lives. Dual-engineer households where both partners are exceptional at solving problems and quietly worse at being in one. Founders whose company is the third person in the marriage and gets the best hours. Immigrant families holding two generations of expectation in one household — the parents' sacrifice, the kids' assimilation, and a partnership stretched across both. The South Bay rewards execution and competence and is much less generous with the slower, messier work of being known. That gap — between how well people in this city perform and how isolated they actually feel inside their relationships — is where most of the meaningful therapy happens here.
San Jose's pressures are specific and they don't ease up. Dual-engineer couples at Apple, Google, Nvidia, Meta, Adobe, and Cisco are running parallel optimization problems all day and then trying to be soft and curious with each other at 9 p.m. when neither has anything left. The layoff cycles of the last several years have rewired how couples in the Valley think about identity, equity vesting, RSU calendars, and what the family's plan even is — and that anxiety lives in the partnership whether or not it gets named. Founders and early employees carry a particular kind of moral compression: the company needs everything and the marriage gets the leftover. And running through all of it, Silicon Valley's immigrant and second-generation population — Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino, Iranian, and many more — is holding multigenerational expectations about marriage, parenting, career, and elder care that mainstream American couples therapy frequently fails to take seriously. Willow Glen and Cambrian Park families, Almaden Valley dual-career households, Japantown and downtown professional couples, and Cupertino and West San Jose tech-anchored partnerships are all carrying versions of the same underlying problem: two competent people who haven't been undefended with each other in a long time. The work I do meets the South Bay reality, including the cultural and family-of-origin dimensions that shape what intimacy is even allowed to look like.
About Individual Therapy
Individual therapy for adults navigating anxiety, relationship patterns, identity, intimacy, life transitions, and the quiet weight of carrying it all. My approach is relational, depth-oriented, and grounded — we work together to understand what's underneath, not just manage what's on the surface.
What to expect
- Weekly 45-minute sessions, consistent rhythm
- A relational, exploratory approach — we go where the material leads
- Equal attention to present-day life and the patterns underneath
- Real conversation, not a script or a worksheet
- Your goals guide the work — I follow your lead
Common reasons people come in
- —Anxiety, overthinking, and the sense of always being 'on'
- —Recurring patterns in relationships
- —Identity, sexuality, and self-understanding
- —Life transitions — career changes, breakups, loss, parenthood
- —Burnout and the feeling of running on empty
- —Family-of-origin material that keeps surfacing
- —Tech-industry burnout and equity-cycle anxiety — layoff waves, vesting timelines, on-call demands, and the way two high-performing engineers can be deeply in love and still living parallel lives
Weekly 45-minute sessions
- All sessions held online via secure HIPAA-compliant video
- Cancellation policy: 24 hours
- Currently accepting new San Jose clients
Why online sessions are a good fit for San Jose
Online sessions are the format the South Bay actually has time for. Sessions before the 9 a.m. standup, in the gap before a 4 p.m. design review, or at 8 p.m. after the kids are down and before the late on-call rotation kicks in. No driving up the Peninsula or down 17, no losing an evening to 101 traffic between San Jose and Mountain View, no rearranging school pickup around an office visit. For dual-engineer couples, the format also removes the logistical impossibility of getting two senior individual contributors out of meetings and into the same physical room on the same night — a problem that quietly kills a lot of in-person couples therapy here. Sessions can also accommodate the on-call and travel schedules that come with senior tech work, and they support the increasingly common reality of one partner working hybrid and one fully in-office. For founders and early employees managing equity-event stress, the privacy of an online session from a home office is meaningful. And for immigrant and multigenerational households, online therapy offers a layer of privacy and access that matters — particularly for clients whose extended family is part of the everyday rhythm of the home.
- No travel time across Willow Glen, Cambrian, Downtown San Jose
- Sessions fit into work-from-home schedules
- Privacy and discretion — sessions from your own home
- Available evenings and select weekend hours
A relational, depth-oriented therapist serving California.
I'm Fanshen Thompson, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) based in California. I work with couples, individuals, and partnerships navigating intimacy, identity, and the slower work of becoming.
I am a certified Gottman trained couples therapist and draw from Emotionally Focused Therapy, Internal Family Systems, attachment theory, and somatic practices. But more than any single modality, I bring myself: a real human who has done — and continues to do — this work.
My practice is online and serves clients across California. The work is honest, grounded, and paced to what you can actually carry.
Frequently asked questions
How do online sessions work?
We meet over a secure, HIPAA-compliant video platform. You'll receive a link before each session and join from a private space at home — no app downloads or special equipment beyond a device with a camera and a stable internet connection.
Do I need a special app or platform?
No. The video platform runs in your browser. I'll send a link a few minutes before our session — you click, and we begin.
Is this covered by insurance?
I'm an out-of-network provider. I can provide a superbill you can submit to your insurance for potential out-of-network reimbursement. I'd encourage you to call your insurance and ask about your out-of-network mental health benefits.
How long does it take to see results?
Most people begin to feel something shift within the first several weeks — a little more clarity, a little less alone in it. Real, lasting change is a longer arc, often months of consistent weekly work. I'll be honest with you about what I see along the way.
What is your cancellation policy?
My cancellation policy is 24 hours. Sessions cancelled with less than 24 hours' notice are charged in full.
Can you see clients in San Jose?
Yes. I work with San Jose and broader South Bay couples and individuals — Willow Glen, Cambrian Park, Almaden Valley, downtown, Japantown, Rose Garden, Naglee Park, West San Jose, Berryessa, Evergreen, and across to Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Los Gatos, Saratoga, Campbell, and Mountain View. Because sessions are over secure video, dual-tech couples whose office locations are 25 minutes apart on 101 in good traffic — meaning 70 minutes in real traffic — can both join from home or from a private room at work on the same night, which is usually what makes weekly therapy actually sustainable here instead of a calendar item that keeps getting moved.
Ready to start? Let's talk.
Book a free 20-minute consultation. We'll talk about what's going on and whether working together feels right. No pressure, no commitment.