My Approach
I believe that connection is the foundation of a fulfilling life. Therapy is a very specific type of connection: an investment in a unique, personal relationship that aims to facilitate positive change. As humans, we engage in a constant, iterative process of meaning-making through language, story, and relationship. We seek to communicate the vastness of our lived experience, to reinforce our sense of belonging through shared understanding. As we move through life, we grow and evolve around others, affecting one another’s processes, interpretations, and identities.
I help my clients approach this challenging process with intention, clarity, and support. Because a strong, trusting foundation underlies all successful therapy, I bring my whole self to our sessions, sharing aspects of my own emotional experience, embodiment, or personal history when relevant.
I approach therapy from a holistic perspective, integrating principles of harm reduction, mindfulness practices, and somatic and relational experiments with a post-modern theoretical perspective. In therapy and in my personal life, I value creativity, interdependence, and humor, and am committed to working for equity and dignity for all people.
Read more about my background or schedule a free consultation to learn more.
TL;DR
Here are 3 things I hope to provide for my clients
1. A therapeutic experience
Cathartic, clarifying conversations to help you feel heard and seen, occasionally sharing laughter and joy amid the serious work of growth and healing.
2. Tools
Practical resources rooted in contemporary research to help you manage anxiety, gain insight, and navigate close relationships.
3. A supportive witness
A unique relationship, scaffolded by specific and communicated boundaries, to support you and hold space for you as you take steps toward a more intentional and connected life.
Theoretical orientations
Below, please find a little more specificity on the theoretical orientations that inform my work and point of view.
Narrative Therapy
Narrative Therapy is a therapeutic orientation that uses the power of intentional language and creative storytelling to locate problems outside of people. Rather than viewing clients as “sick” or behaviors as “symptoms,” narrative therapy focuses on changing one’s relationship to problems such as anxiety, apathy, infidelity, and fear by engaging with them from a mindful distance. Narrative therapy assumes all people have inherent dignity and wisdom, and places great emphasis on the ways that language, context, and culture shape our perception. I gravitate toward the strong premium narrative therapy places on storytelling, linguistic precision, and personal agency. Together, we will re-examine old stories and engage intentionally with new stories to help you build a life that aligns with your goals and values.
Relational Therapy
Relational therapy values relationships as vehicles for change and growth. This is at the basis of my belief system as a therapist: just as you are made in the context of relationships, you are changed in the context of relationships. As a relational therapist, I strive to show up authentically, and to highlight when interpersonal patterns or dynamics are at work within the context of our relationship. I may share my own experience as it relates to you, naming when I am feeling defensive, touched, or proud, for example. Based on the belief that change and growth in the therapeutic relationship will beget change and growth in other relationships, we will intentionally co-create our relationship, giving you a present, compassionate, and potentially corrective emotional experience of connecting and relating.
Gestalt Therapy
The word “gestalt” refers to a whole that is greater and more complex than the sum of its parts. Gestalt psychology is a school of thought that examines how we perceive and make sense of the world around us, seek patterns, and make meaning. Gestalt therapy pulls from principles of gestalt psychology to approach mind, body, and behavior from a whole-person lens. Like narrative therapy, Gestalt therapy emphasizes context and perception as vehicles for promoting awareness, and assumes that each person has made intelligent, adaptive, and creative adjustments that, at one point in time, were supportive to the functioning of the whole system. Gestalt therapy is also a present and relationship-focused, experiential therapy that seeks to help people awaken to the present moment, know and feel the full range of their emotions, and better navigate the complexity of lived experience, in order to integrate all parts of the self into a more peaceful and complete whole. We may experiment with role play, creative exercises, mindfulness, parts work, and somatic (body based) work in addition to talk therapy as we co-create the conditions for holistic, integrated growth and change.
Trauma sensitive therapy
Trauma sensitive therapy attends to nervous system regulation by operating from a foundation of collaboration and consent, in order to create safe environments for interacting with trauma. This includes sharing knowledge about how the body processes, stores, and reacts to trauma, and providing resources for nervous system regulation, as well as naming power dynamics and developing healthy boundaries. A trauma sensitive approach respects the inherent wisdom of the body, and values all of the protective methods that people have developed to keep themselves safe in various contexts. Trauma-sensitive therapy centers the client’s knowledge and expertise in order to empower clients to build their own resources for healing individual, collective, systemic, and cultural trauma. The Relational Center approaches all therapy from a trauma sensitive lens, and my own work facilitating the group Bodies & Trauma has also helped me develop my knowledge and understanding of this approach.