“out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. i’ll meet you there.”
-Rumi
why therapy?
Therapy can be a powerful and effective resource in accessing healing and fostering a fulfilling and meaningful life. It is a collaborative journey that client and therapist embark on together, with the aim of addressing your needs and goals.
Most likely you’re coming to therapy with a desire for something to shift – in yourself, in your life, in your relationships. Whether you’ve suffered trauma or abuse, have unresolved emotional pain, past or present experiences you are looking to make sense of, or are simply struggling to exist in a challenging world – therapy is a space where you can be seen, heard, and received unconditionally, facilitating the surfacing of deep truths and possibilities for change and transformation. I understand my role to be to assist my clients in coming back into contact with their own inner capacities for healing and growth.
what to expect in working with me
Each session is tailored to your needs and we work with what is “alive” for you in any given moment. I believe you are the expert in your own experience – my approach is collaborative, non-pathologizing, and culturally sensitive. My style is warm, compassionate, and nurturing, and I also bring gentle challenge and humor.
Some of the approaches/modalities that I draw from: Internal Family Systems, mindfulness, somatic awareness, depth psychology, Gestalt, Buddhist psychology, ecopsychology, and liberation psychology.
fostering self compassion
Self compassion is a key ingredient for change. Our inner experience is shaped by how we relate to ourselves, and when we can relate to ourselves with some degree acceptance and understanding, things can really begin to shift.
parts work
I am trained in a modality called Internal Family Systems, which is a form of “parts work.” This way of working helps us to understand how different parts or aspects of ourselves (i.e. a self-critical part, a perfectionist part, an addicted part, a depressive part, etc) come into being for a reason. We can get to know these parts and their secret histories, build self understanding and acceptance, and build an internal connection with a greater sense of Self.
mindfulness and somatic awareness
By slowing down to simply notice what happens in the body and mind, without judging it, we can get to know our internal landscape. As we slow down and notice, we can feel less identified with whatever may be happening in any given moment. This can have the effect of experiencing increased freedom, spaciousness, and choice.
beyond coping
Together we’ll take a look at your survival strategies, and ways you may be operating in fight/flight/freeze responses. We will explore both the function/wisdom of your current strategies, as well as alternative ways of tending to yourself, with the larger aim of feeling more and more at home in your body.
connecting the dots
We are meaning-making creatures and long to make sense of our experience. Together we’ll explore how your current experience makes sense in light of your past, intergenerational family dynamics and patterns, and the stressors and pressures of living in our world.
embracing paradox
Life is full of paradoxes – can we become larger to better hold them? An important one that guides me in my work (coming from Gestalt psychology as well as many spiritual traditions) is the paradox that meaningful change happens first through accepting what is.
areas of focus and interest
anxiety
depression
grief
relational/developmental trauma
relationships/attachment challenges
intergenerational patterns and cycles
addictive patterns and behaviors
LGBTQIA+
exploring identity
spirituality and meaning making
ecopsychology and self as nature
mystery and paradox