Ryan Thurwachter, LCSW | Therapist in Menlo Park, CA

Will This Therapist Get It?

From the outside, your life looks like it's working. What no one sees is how much effort it takes to keep it that way, and how tired you are underneath it. You already know you need to talk to someone. The question that keeps stopping you is whether the person on the other end will actually get it, or whether you'll spend the first three sessions explaining your life to someone who nods along and then sends you home with a worksheet.

What Working With Me Looks Like

I’m Ryan Thurwachter, an IFS therapist in Menlo Park. People often ask what happens in a session, since internal family systems can sound abstract before you've done it. We usually start with a check-in, how you're doing, how the week's been, then land on what we're going to work with that day. Often that picks up right where we left off the week before, so the work builds instead of starting over each time. Some sessions stay conversational. We'll talk about a feeling or thought that's causing you difficulty. Other sessions go a more experiential route, and I'll guide you in speaking and listening to that feeling or thought directly, instead of just talking about it. You set the pace, every time. Nothing happens before you're ready for it.

Why I Do This Work

I became a therapist because therapy saved my life. My baby brother died when I was eleven, and I've lost two more siblings since then to overdoses. The weight of that, along with the guilt of being the oldest who was supposed to take care of everyone, is something I've had to do my own deep work to process. The people I work with carry a different burden than I did, but the pattern is the same: parts that learned early to perform, to hold everything together, and to never let anyone see what's underneath.

That experience is why I take this work as seriously as I do. When I found IFS, first as a client, I started to understand why I felt the way I did, and the low self-worth, the anxiety, and the coping strategies that weren't working actually started to shift for the first time. It changed things for me personally before it ever changed anything for the people I work with, which is part of why I trust it as much as I do.

What Clients Tell Me

One client described going from constant people-pleasing to putting himself first. Another told me she feels more collected and stable, with far fewer of the emotional swings that used to derail her week. The thing clients tell me most is that they finally understand themselves, and that understanding comes from a place of genuine self-acceptance.

Training and Experience

I'm a licensed clinical social worker and Level 2 IFS therapist. I hold a Master of Social Work from San Jose State University and a BA from UC Santa Cruz. Before private practice I spent years in community mental health, locked psychiatric units, homeless shelters, addiction treatment programs, and crisis residential facilities. I've been in the mental health field since 2012 and practicing as a therapist since 2018.

IFS came into the picture a few years into my career, on the client side first, in my own IFS therapy. A few months in, I took the IFS Circle program, a self-paced course that introduces the model without the live practice or supervision that come later. I started trying IFS with my own clients around the same time, alongside the other approaches I was using as a more eclectic therapist. Getting into an official Level 1 training through the IFS Institute took a long time, and by the time a spot opened up I was about two years into my own IFS therapy. The Institute was founded by Richard Schwartz, the psychotherapist who created IFS, and it's been the sole provider of IFS training and certification for decades. Level 1 runs in real time, in small groups, where you practice the model directly on each other and get coached on what's working and what isn't.

After Level 1, IFS stopped being one approach among several and became my primary mental model and my only modality. I've now spent about four years with IFS, both as a client and as an IFS therapist. I later completed Level 2 training, which follows that same live, small-group, coached format at a more advanced level and included coursework in Intimacy from the Inside Out (IFIO) for couples and family work.

Outside the Office

I live with my wife and our dog in the Bay Area. We both went to UC Santa Cruz and still love going down to the coast. I play video games, tinker with my 3D printer, and we've been making Japan a recurring adventure.

My Specialties

I work with professionals dealing with anxiety, burnout, trauma, and grief. I use Internal Family Systems therapy as my primary modality. I offer in-person therapy in Menlo Park, near the Palo Alto border, and online therapy for clients throughout California and New Jersey.

If you've been looking for a therapist who actually gets it, I'd like to talk. Book a free 15-minute consultation and we'll figure out together whether this is the right fit.

Practice Details

I'm a private-pay practice and don't accept insurance directly. My fee is $250 per 50-minute session. If your plan offers out-of-network benefits, I handle the superbill submission for you to put toward possible reimbursement.

A Good Faith Estimate is available before your first session. See my Good Faith Estimate policy.

You can also reach out by calling 669-577-6800 or by email here.

Your inquiry is confidential. I typically respond within one business day.