Michelle Macarai, LCSW #22236

I have been a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) since 2004 and have a long devotion to the convergence of chronic illness and mental health. I have been honored to work with people and their families living with serious illnesses (such as HIV/AIDS, cancer, and ALS) as they coped with the challenges that arose from sustained stress. Although I have worked in a variety of environments, my favorite setting has been meeting people and their families in their homes when I worked at a San Francisco Bay Area nonprofit hospice as a medical social worker and bereavement coordinator. It was powerful to partner with people and their families as they made decisions about their health care that felt aligned with their integrity and values. I have experienced non-death losses (including divorce of parents, miscarriage, chronic illness, and trauma) as well as death losses (including father loss, grandparent loss, and friend loss). As a person of mixed ancestry, I have a lived experience of searching of connection and belonging. I am committed to examining power, privilege, race, and culture in relationships both personal and professional. I choose to work with people in their grief after the loss of a loved one and in anticipation of death because I’ve noticed isolation and a lack of recognition around the grief process. It is meaningful to create space where people can be with their grief, in whatever form and meaning it takes at any given moment. Being with people at the end of their lives has taught me to be as authentic as possible. Partnering with people who are grieving has informed me of how powerful it is to meet pain with compassion and truth. Through education and experience, I am drawn toward a family systems and crisis intervention approach with love for narrative therapy and transpersonal/positive psychology, and a focus upon resilience. In our time together we will work toward integration of grief. I uphold the continuing bonds of relationship with loved ones who have died. My practice also includes End-of-Life (EOL) Doula care. This is folded into my private practice with tending of advance care planning, conversations about meaning making, and anticipatory grief. I also facilitate conversations that explore and envision care at the time of dying, death care, and rituals which may include consideration of Medical Aid in Dying (MAID). My commitment is that a person's autonomy is respected, seen, and heard. I recognize that our work together depends upon your culture, my culture, and how we intersect. I bring deep listening, respect, and humility to our connection. I welcome you in your suffering and transformation; in your loneliness and community; in your fallowness and your growth; in your fragments and your wholeness. I acknowledge my presence on the traditional ancestral territory of the Ohlone people. I hold gratitude and respect to the ancestors, elders, and relatives past, present, and emerging.