My approach

Whether it is your first time in therapy or you have had years of experiences in therapy, I will meet you with warmth, curiosity, and a dedication to understanding you. To build trust and foster greater feelings of safety, we move at your own pace. If we explore moment-to-moment feelings or notice how emotions express themselves in your body, we do so to the degree that feels right for you.

I have a non-directive and exploratory style. Talking through things out loud, noticing passing feelings and sensations, and exploring dreams or memories can all be important parts of the ways we come to understand your experiences. Because structure can also be helpful in therapy, especially when stressful, complicated or new feelings are present, I bring attentiveness as well as a gentle, active presence to the work. In this way, therapy centers the organic unfolding of your experiences while also at times offering practical tools to support you in your life.

On couples, dyads, and relationship therapy: Here I work with a similar approach to individual therapy. I support exploration of your emotional undercurrents and the ways communication styles, boundary navigations, and needs and desires show up in your connection. We can consider conflict and stress to be important teachers and work to understand about how you each relate to these forces. I hold reverence for your connection, for you as individuals, and for the histories and wisdom you bring into the room.
Youth and teens: I work with young people, especially those who are queer, trans, and gender-questioning. Therapy is a space to talk, vent, connect and explore your feelings on your own terms. We can talk about things that feel challenging or confusing while celebrating who you are and what you want in your life.
You can read more about the frameworks that inform my style below.

Psychodynamic

Psychodynamic and psychoanalytic therapy is interested in the ways early experiences and forces shape the formation of the self – these can be dynamics within one’s family, one’s community, or within the broader systemic and structural context one comes from. We can explore these formative elements, and we can listen to conscious and unconscious thoughts, feelings, and associations in order to understand and attend to the current moment. While your experiences are a critical focus in our work together, I am not a blank slate or a neutral observer. I am present with you, engaging and experiencing with you in real time and sometimes sharing my own wonderings and curiosities.

Relational

At the core of therapy is a relationship – our relationship. At your own pace, we can explore how it feels to be in connection together. Sometimes this is about subtle ways of building understanding and recognition and sometimes this is explicitly an exploration of what comes up in the room between us.

Somatic

Body-based psychotherapy or somatic therapy involves bringing attention to the physical sensations, movements, and impulses of the body in order to access foreclosed emotions and support new patterning.

For a variety of reasons, many people find it very difficult or stressful to “feel into” their bodies. Perhaps the idea of working somatically sounds stressful. Maybe in order to survive you have had to learn to not feel your body. Maybe you navigate the world in a body that is subject to greater amounts of surveillance, violence, and distress. Whatever the reason may be, I respect all of the ways you relate (or do not relate) to your body. We approach somatic work to the degree you have interest and desire around it.

A wise teacher imparted the lesson to me that we can consider all forms of therapy to be somatic, because our bodies – whether or not we choose to engage them directly – are always a part of the conversation. This all means that in therapy, no matter how exactly we are engaging, there are always ways to listen to the information and knowledge that our bodies may be telling us.