my approach & specialization
my approach:
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Everything in life is relationships. The first thing I tell all of my clients is that I will always bring my full self into session, in the hopes that I can model a space for them to do the same. In all my time doing this work, there is nothing I have seen that is more healing than a strong and honest relationship between therapist and client. I am a real person, and I want my clients to trust that they can be, too. The best way to show up is the way that feels most real to you. I believe we are two people witnessing one another being human, and this is where true healing happens.
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Your story is the foundation of what has led to this very moment. It has peaks and valleys, and all of it is important. I believe in breaking down and examining the most pivotal moments of your experiences so that we can understand where you place yourself within them and pull meaning from them. We do this knowing that sometimes things happen and, from them, we can pull threads of deep meaning. Other times, things just happen and we cannot find meaning at all, and that is actually okay. My job is to help you figure out what to do with that.
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Why are we here? This is the age-old question, and the answer changes often. This approach allows us to look at the big picture and explore all the ways that life can hold truth for you. We can ask the hard questions and explore all the details. This modality looks at things like purpose, freedom, even death, legacy, and grief, without fear. This work will ask a lot of you; there is no doubt about that. We can do it anyway, together, because we both know you deserve to feel free.
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The human body holds so much feeling and, in almost every case, trauma. In the world today, we are told to ignore it, to intellectualize it, and to push through. Somatic work asks you to stop and spend time with the sensations and cues your body is giving you, and to learn to trust them again. For some, the first time ever. I utilize somatic work as a means of helping my clients reconnect to parts of themselves they thought they had lost, and to come home to the body that has worked so hard for them their entire lives.
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The present moment acts as a lens for identifying behaviors and patterns that no longer serve us in the larger picture of what we are trying to do with our lives. Gestalt therapy involves staying in the moment and sitting with difficult emotions as they are happening. We can learn to tolerate the hard things in life, as long as we do not abandon ourselves. My use of this modality means I observe things like body language and tonal shifts to unpack the layers of what is being felt as you feel it. It involves gentle confrontation, as well as clarity and directness.
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The way that we learn to situate ourselves in a room, our lives, and our social circles is not by coincidence. Our earliest interactions can impact the way we perceive ourselves. We can explore the ways that you have been influenced by caregivers, friends, and romantic partners, and why we hold onto small interactions for an entire lifetime. Attachment allows us to understand why we behave in certain ways and how we can work toward building secure, solid, lifelong relationships with trust and love at the heart of them.
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Every person has trauma, be it medical, religious, institutional, racial, sexual, intimate partner violence, immigration-related, intergenerational, or any other kind of trauma. To do this work means to witness someone else’s pain and say, “Hello, I see how this hurts, and I am here to feel it with you.” We aren’t going to “fix anything,” because you are not a broken toy. You are a human being who has experienced incredibly complex and nuanced things. We will unpack them slowly, without pressure, and in a safe manner. My job is to believe you and to help you move through the thick of the pain.
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Identity is fluid and allows us to feel as though we belong to something larger than ourselves. You contain many layers, with history, overlap, and complexity. This is something to be celebrated and constantly revisited. It is an absolute joy and honor to help clients discover pieces of their identity along this journey, and to watch them bloom into the many versions of themselves.
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I operate my practice through a liberation and anti-oppressive lens. That also means recognizing that the role of therapist is carceral in nature, due to the history of the profession, the inherent power dynamics, and operating within a capitalist society. I recognize that this can make it harder for many populations to trust the profession, and by extension, me. I am happy to discuss this further, but some of the ways I manage this in my practice include practicing through a relational lens, not charging late or same-day cancellation fees, offering a sliding scale for clients experiencing financial hardship, and working with my clients to build strong support systems to avoid the need for large and potentially harmful institutional intervention, among other approaches. Liberation psychology was founded on the principles of community, understanding, and dismantling systems put in place by colonial powers, and on the belief that until we are all free, none of us are.
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I am a licensed creative arts therapist. This means I am trained as a mental health therapist, but I also have additional skills to use art and artistic mediums as a way of exploring what my clients are working on. I use tools like metaphor, visualization, and various other techniques that can be incorporated into our work together. Art-making experience is not necessary to use this approach, and art-making is not mandatory for our work together.
My practice centers women and queer adults who are:
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Relationships have the power to wound us, but they also have the power to heal us. We can explore the ways you have learned to protect yourself, the patterns that keep showing up, and what it might look like to connect from a place of safety rather than survival. Together, we can work toward relationships that feel grounded in trust, authenticity, and mutual care.
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The relationships we have with our earliest caregivers often plays a role in how we perceive who we are, where we belong, what we deserve and the way we move through the world long after childhood has ended. In session, we can explore the impact of parentification, attachment wounds, family conflict, estrangement, and the roles you learned to play in order to survive. This work is about understanding where those patterns came from, grieving what was missing, and creating space for new ways of relating to yourself and others.
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Sometimes we find ourselves repeating the same dynamics, relationships, or ways of coping without fully understanding why. By examining the stories, experiences, beliefs, and patterns passed down to us we can begin to make sense of what has been carried forward. From there, we can decide together what is you will decide to bring with you to the next chapter of your life, what to let go of, and what it might look like to choose a new path altogether.
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Loss can arrive in many forms, and it often changes us in ways we do not expect or choose. Whether it is death, estrangement, separation, endings, illness, expectations not being met, moving into a life you hadn’t dreamed of, or letting go of what you did dream of. We can make space for the full range of what you are feeling, without rushing the process or forcing meaning where it does not yet exist. We can sit with the weight of grief, the disorientation of transitioning into the new normal, and the quiet ways change continues to echo in your life. Over time, this space becomes one where sorrow, closure, ritual, honoring your pain, and forward movement can exist together.
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After painful or traumatic experiences, it can feel difficult to know where to begin, or whether healing is even possible. Whether the trauma you’ve experienced has medical, religious, institutional, sexual, racial, emotional, immigration, physical violence, or systemic roots. We can move slowly through what has happened, honoring your pace and your need for safety along the way. Healing from trauma is not linear. It changes you in a significant way, that often feels like there are no real words for. Somatic work, education about the ways trauma impacts the brain and body, and narrative work are some of the approaches that will help to provide understanding, integration, and growth.
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When your body is living with ongoing illness or stress symptoms that have started to show up physically, everyday life can require a level of care and negotiation that others may not see. Maybe you have mystery symptoms and are looking for answers, or maybe it feels like the doctors just do not hear or understand. Maybe the medical gaslighting feels like too much and you need help asserting yourself with your physicians. Perhaps you are grieving the life you thought you’d have. There is room for all of it.
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Identity is shaped not only by who we are individually, but also by the communities, histories, and lineages we come from. There are parts of ourselves that feel immediately known, and others that feel distant or interrupted by time, circumstance, or survival. Together, we can explore questions of belonging, disconnection, and the ways your sense of self has been influenced by culture, family, and lived experience. Perhaps you feel in your heart the pain of history within your DNA, physically and emotionally. This work is about processing, grieving what we may never know, gently reconnecting with what feels meaningful to you, including your identity, your community, and your ancestral roots.
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You may already have a strong understanding of your patterns, your history, and the ways you move through the world, yet still find yourself feeling stuck in the same places. We can examine what insight alone hasn’t been able to shift, including the emotional, relational, and somatic layers underneath it. Over time, this work is about turning awareness into movement, and understanding into change that feels lived rather than just known.
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Many of us learn to mask, or be who we need to be in order to belong, stay safe, or be understood, often without realizing when it begins. We can explore the ways masking has helped you navigate the world, while also making space for the parts of you that have had to stay hidden. We practice and challenge the patterns we discover so we can learn who those patterns are for, and why they help us feel safe. Over time, this work is about gently returning to yourself and allowing authenticity to feel less like exposure and more like home.
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It makes sense that you would be craving gentleness, in a world that has often asked you to be strong at all costs. We can use our work together to explore the impact of systemic oppression while also tending to your need for rest, care, connection, and pleasure. There is room here for rage, and grief and sadness and everything you have been expected to carry.