Carol Masters-Salnave M.A. LMFT
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist
CLIENT TESTIMONIALS
[I am writing] as a 20-year veteran of the United States Armed Forces and a newly admitted underrepresented minority Education PhD student.
Due to my PTSD from active duty, I have worked with many callous military counselors over the years. It is with overwhelming joy and great relief that I am now with Carol who is thoughtful, kind, and compassionate to my unique circumstances. She is sensitive to my cultural, ethnic, and racial challenges like no other, and offers perfectly timed guidance that keeps me grounded and balanced. I look forward to my weekly sessions with Carol, and have suggested her to some of my fellow underrepresented graduate students whom also suffer from trauma.
I am grateful to work with such an amazing counselor.
I was born in Vietnam and raised in Russia and I have worked with Dr. Masters-Salnave for about 2 years already. She has been there for me in my toughest moments and has always understood me and even tried to provide the tools for me to understand situations from my own cultural perspective. She is a tremendous therapist and I have never experienced anything other than empathy and understanding from her.
I worked with Carol Masters-Salnave as my primary therapist in the San Francisco Bay Area from 2014-2018. I saw Carol weekly throughout the time I lived in the Bay Area while I was finishing my dissertation remotely at the University of California Santa Barbara, and continued to work with her after I received my PhD, until I moved to Providence, Rhode Island.
I identify as a nonbinary transmasculine person and I am also queer and polyamorous. My partners were mostly queer and trans in the Bay Area community during the time I lived there, primarily nonbinary transmasuline people, cisgender lesbians, and transgender lesbians. Carol was able to support me both as an individual and as a member of the Bay Area queer community. She helped me deal with problems I specifically faced as a queer person such as questioning my gender and coming out as trans, dealing with bullying and boundary issues in my relationships with other queer people, navigating my long-term relationship with another nonbinary trans person, and facing discrimination based on my gender and sexuality.
I found Carol to be very culturally competent in dealing with these issues. If at any time she found something I was going through difficult to understand, she listened to me and seemed eager to learn more. She was also very good at having conversations with me about how our relationship was going, which helped me trust her and build rapport.
I began seeing Ms. Salnave in 2014, following a separation that left me as the main care provider for a young child, as I was attending graduate school and preparing for my qualifying exams.
I am a multi-racial black woman from a French Caribbean island and a single mother in her late 30s, and Ms. Salnave has always been highly mindful and respectful of my intersectionality. Throughout the years, she has shown nothing but the highest degree of professionalism and knowledge in her interactions with me.
Ms. Salnave has been an integral part of my wellbeing, of my ability to continue my studies while managing my situation.
I graduated from UC Berkeley in December 2015. I reached out to Carol Masters-Salnave in Spring 2015 during my senior year as an undergrad. I stopped seeing her Fall 2015 when I studied abroad. After graduating and entering the workforce, I returned to her in 2017 and have continued therapy with her ever since. Initially, I was referred to Carol by my roommate who spoke highly of the work that they did together when no other therapist could help her achieve such a level of progress. Upon hearing this, I was hopeful and rightly so. I am consistently impressed with her ability to help me navigate my journey both within my cultural upbringing as a Chinese-American as well as my multiracial/multicultural relationship with a Mexican-American. I have learned to be comfortable in my identity as a Chinese woman in the context of my Chinese family, my boyfriend's Mexican family, and even my place in the United States as a whole--especially in the political climate we live in. Her insight has helped me improve my sense of well being and quality of life. I value her astute aptitude for healing and for being able to connect with me during times when it felt like no one including myself could figure out what was going on. She has given me hope because not only does she understand her work as a professional, but she understands each person as an individual. The work she does is significant because she does it with empathetic skill and expertise.