Jaime Gano, MSW, ACSW

What should your client know about you?

I graduated from Cal State East Bay with a Bachelors in Health Sciences, Community Health, where I learned about health disparities and how they affect our most vulnerable communities. Then, during the pandemic, I received my Masters in Social Work from Arizona State University while working for a local county public health department providing COVID-19 contact tracing and case investigating work. This opportunity allowed me to hear first hand, our community’s many struggles with a pandemic and the lasting effects it would have on so many lives. In addition to my public health experience, I have acute care hospital experience as a Medical Social Worker. Though most of my experience has been working with youth and families, both in educational settings and within the child welfare system. I have spent the last eight years working with adolescents and transitional age youth (TAY) at high schools and at the college level, both at a local community college and two California State Universities. In these settings, I was able to provide students with individual therapy, life skills and guidance counseling, health education, which included behavioral health workshops and events, and referral for those needing additional support for more in-depth assistance from various county health care and behavioral health systems.

What is your approach to therapy?

I have learned, through my experience working with young people, that working with them is a privilege, because they are allowing you into their very private world. This requires the clinician to build trust by being authentic, developing a good rapport, and by creating a safe space that allows them to be the expert in their lived-experience. By utilizing a narrative approach and taking into consideration the person-in-environment perspective, this allows me to come from a strengths-based perspective, using mindfulness and cognitive-behavioral therapy with a solution-focused technique will help them build self-confidence well beyond our sessions together. These modalities also complement anyone at any age who is dealing with anxiety, depression, trauma, stress, and interpersonal conflict. I will work with you to develop a treatment goal that will empower you to reach your goals of overall well-being, in many areas of your life. Working through our past traumas and adverse life events can be challenging but not impossible, painful yet healing, difficult but rewarding. Navigating these feelings is the single most important gift you can give yourself, and living your best life is my hope for you.

What can clients expect to take away from sessions with you?

“Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different, it’s accepting the past for what it was, and using this moment and this time to help yourself move forward.”- Oprah Winfrey I want my clients to embrace that this journey will be difficult at times, while at the same time remembering that this discomfort is only temporary and can lead to feelings of liberation, acceptance, and self love. Together we can cultivate healing in a safe space, the ability to work towards living your best life, all with you being the expert in your lived experience, sharing your story with me.

What was your path on becoming a therapist?

My path to becoming a therapist was not a traditional one but rather, one that chose me after some life experiences and choices that led me down this journey. My original path was to become a nurse, because helping people is in my blood, it’s who I am. But as life often does, it challenges us at times and through those challenges we are faced with moments that require us to stop and listen to what the universe is telling us and recognizing when it’s time to go down a different path, one we may not have considered before. That path for me was becoming a social worker; and in turn, becoming a clinical social worker, so I could help people heal holistically, tap into their true potential, and to find a sense of tranquility and well-being in order to live their best life. This is my calling, and I’m so glad I get to do it everyday!