Welcome!
I’m a Marriage and Family Therapist Associate
& Professional Clinical Counselor Associate
located in San Francisco.
I offer therapy to individuals, couples/polycules, and families, both in-person and online.
Renee Maksoud
In My Practice
I work with people who want to understand the patterns shaping their relationships, identity, sexuality, and sense of self.
My approach is relational, trauma-informed, and grounded in the body. I draw from attachment theory, IFS-informed parts work, sensorimotor therapy, mindfulness, and collaborative conversation to help clients notice what feels stuck, protective, or unresolved.
Therapy with me is not about forcing change or pathologizing your experience. It is a space to build more clarity, capacity, honesty, and connection - with yourself and with the people who matter to you.
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Individual therapy can support you in understanding the patterns, emotions, relationships, and life experiences that shape how you move through the world.
I often work with clients navigating anxiety, trauma, grief, attachment wounds, identity, sexuality, relationship patterns, and major transitions. My style is collaborative and non-pathologizing, drawing from IFS-informed parts work, sensorimotor therapy, mindfulness, and attachment-based therapy.
The work is not only about insight. It is also about building the capacity to feel, choose, communicate, set boundaries, and relate to yourself with more honesty and care.
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Relationship therapy can help partners slow down the cycles that keep repeating — conflict, withdrawal, resentment, disconnection, jealousy, sexual tension, or difficulty repairing after rupture.
I work with couples, polycules, and non-traditional relationship structures, including clients practicing ethical non-monogamy, polyamory, and kink.
In relationship work, I pay close attention to the pattern between people: how conflict escalates, how distance forms, how repair breaks down, and what each person may be protecting underneath. Drawing from attachment theory, nervous system awareness, nonviolent communication, and Gottman-informed tools, we work to build enough safety and clarity that new conversations - and new choices - become possible.
I have completed Level 2 Training in the Gottman Method.
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Family therapy can help when communication has become strained, roles feel rigid, conflict keeps escalating, or family members feel misunderstood, disconnected, or stuck.
I work with families to better understand the patterns that develop between people - how each person protects themselves, how conflict is maintained, and what gets lost in the process.
Using attachment-based, systems-oriented, and trauma-informed approaches, we work toward clearer communication, more flexible roles, and a greater capacity for repair.
Sex & Intimacy
Therapy
Sex and intimacy can bring up some of the most vulnerable parts of being human: desire, shame, pleasure, grief, power, trauma, identity, and longing.
As a member of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT), I provide a safe and supportive space for exploring and addressing challenges related to sexual health, intimacy, and relationship dynamics.
I offer a sex-positive, kink-aware, queer-affirming, and gender-affirming space to explore your relationship to sexuality and intimacy — including the places where desire, boundaries, identity, past experiences, and relationship dynamics intersect.
This work is not about prescribing what your sexuality, gender, or relationships “should” look like. It is a space to better understand your desires, limits, fears, patterns, and needs - and to move toward more honest, embodied, and connected intimacy.
Psychedelic Integration
Therapy
Psychedelic experiences can be meaningful, confusing, destabilizing, clarifying, or difficult to put into words. Preparation and integration therapy can help you approach these experiences with greater intention, support, and care - to better make sense of what emerges afterward.
In private practice, I offer psychedelic preparation and integration support. I do not provide, prescribe, or administer psychedelic medicines.
Alongside my private practice, I am a member of the UCSF Translational Psychedelic Research Program, where I serve on the facilitation team supporting preparation, dosing, and integration in clinical research. This experience informs my grounded, trauma-informed approach to helping clients reflect on psychedelic experiences and integrate insights into their relationships, bodies, values, and daily lives.