Depression, anxiety, and insomnia
For people who have done years of talk therapy and want to reach what words haven't.
Music therapy for adults
I'm Sophia Wang, a board-certified music therapist. I use music, imagery and conversation in my work with depression, anxiety, grief, trauma, relationships and questions of identity.
In-person & Online in the San Francisco Bay Area · Online across the United States
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Trained and practiced at
What I help with
The concerns people bring to me most often
If what you're dealing with isn't listed here, it's still worth asking. The consultation is free.
Intergenerational and cultural trauma
The silences and expectations families carry across generations without ever naming them.
Narcissistic relationships and repeating patterns
Recovering from a narcissistic partner, parent or employer, and the patterns that persist after you understand them.
Music performance anxiety and stage fright
For musicians and performers — I'm a violinist, and I know what the minutes before walking onstage feel like.
Cultural adjustment and building a life in a new country
Loneliness, finding community, and the grief that goes unnamed when you leave a country behind.
Psychedelic integration and non-ordinary states
Preparation before a legal clinical, research or ceremonial experience, and integration afterward. No substances provided.
Grief and loss, including the losses nobody recognizes
Death, estrangement, endings without ceremony, and grief that arrives without permission to feel it.
Life direction and family expectations
Expectations you've always met, and the question of what you'd choose if the choice were fully yours.
How I work
Every session is music therapy, but sessions vary
Some sessions are entirely conversation. In others we listen to music together and you tell me what comes up. Sometimes we work with a full Guided Imagery and Music session, which is longer and goes further.
You don't play an instrument or sing, and you don't need any background in music. Most of the people I work with have none.
What happens in a session →
The approaches I draw on
- Psychodynamic — where a pattern began and what it has been protecting.
- Humanistic — the direction of the work comes from you.
- CBT and mindfulness, where they are useful.
Coming up
Groups and circles
Groups are a low-commitment way to try this work. Many of the people I now see individually came to a group first.
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About me
I worked in hospitals for a decade before opening this practice
Oncology, palliative care, psychiatry and rehabilitation — at Memorial Sloan Kettering, Mount Sinai, and in the Bay Area since.
That work is where I learned what music can do when talking has become difficult or isn't available. I was born in China and I practice in English and Mandarin.
Getting started
A free twenty-minute consultation by phone or video. We talk about what brings you here, and I'll tell you whether I think I can help.