— Welcome, I'm Melissa Craven!
About me
Sometimes understanding a problem isn’t enough to change it. Creative psychotherapy gives you ways to explore what you’re experiencing beyond words alone—helping you gain perspective, interrupt familiar patterns, and find new ways of responding to yourself, your relationships, and your life.
I’m a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Registered Expressive Arts Therapist (REAT) with extensive experience integrating the arts into psychotherapy. My approach is creative and active: we blend image, movement, sound, and words with well-researched methods including DBT, ACT, IFS, and self-compassion. Expressive arts can help us move beyond analysis, gain perspective, and discover something new through experience. Clients describe me as warm, direct, and curious; I’m as interested in your strengths as in your symptoms.
- 20+ years of clinical experience, including fourteen years at UCSF Psychiatry and extensive collaboration with psychiatrists
- Registered Expressive Arts Therapist (REAT) with decades of experience using the arts personally, professionally, and therapeutically
- PMH-C certified, with specialized experience supporting adults during fertility, pregnancy, postpartum, and more acute perinatal mental health challenges
- Program & teaching experience: I developed expressive-arts curricula used in UCSF’s PHP/IOP programs and have presented on arts-based care in workshops and Grand Rounds
- Philosophy: You don’t need to be an artist. The process of making and exploring—rather than artistic “skill”—can create perspective, strengthen emotional regulation and self-compassion, and help you reconnect with your own agency.
Find contentment again!
Complete the contact form to find out more
You can also reach me at melissalcraven@proton.me (preferred) or by leaving a voicemail at 415 940 3881.