Brandy Oto

In 2004 I began my counseling career where I was working with individuals who were suffering from substance use disorders. Often these individuals were also dealing with mental health disorders of every type with the most common often anxiety, depression, PTSD and trauma. I quickly was able to see that there were very few individuals that I was working with that had not suffered from some form of trauma and nearly all were on medications. While pursuing my undergraduate degree, I set out to understand people and the trauma they had faced better. I entered a predominantly African American college where I would gain cultural competency firsthand. Additionally, I began attending naturopathic conferences where the healing of the body and mind was being addressed.

I remained in the counseling field working with those with co-occurring disorders during my pursuit of my graduate degree at Walden University. In this pursuit of helping others heal, I found that I quickly became frustrated with the way that mental health disorders of every type were being managed rather than healed completely. This began a pursuit that would shape the next part of my journey to wholeness. I began to search for the root causes of mental health disorders rather than a means of managing the symptoms. While I find value in temporarily helping people to cope with the effects that mental illness has had on their life, I find the most passion in helping them completely eradicate the illness all together.

The last two decades of working with people has helped me to understand their trauma greater and to possess more compassion and understanding of the issues people face while also helping them to overcome and pursue greater purpose in their own lives.

My greatest passion, knowledge and expertise is in relationships. What I have learned, is that the health of an individual is significantly impacted by the relationships that they have closest to them. Divorce is the single greatest predictor of challenges that young children face today. Single parent homes lead to less financial resources, less familial support, poor mental health, and poor physical health for the children impacted by it. For this reason I have a passion for couples therapy to build strong connections that are lasting and intimate and keep families intact.

When working with couples I exclusively use the Gottman approach to couples therapy due to its effectiveness and evidence based research. I am an expert in the areas of substance use, affairs and parenting making this the area that I most thrive working in.

When not working with couples I provide clinical consultation to the Thrive Wellness team and clinical supervision to the students and new licensed therapists. I have a passion for building clinicians to be excellent in the field of counseling.

In my personal time I enjoy traveling with my husband and boys. My favorite vacation destination has been right here in the beautiful United States on the island of Maui. My other favorite past time is playing with my dog, Suka (“Sugar” in Samoan language)