Individual Therapy
I offer one-on-one therapy sessions in person or online. While trauma therapy is my primary focus, I also work with those struggling with anxiety, depression, emotional dysregulation, big life transitions (hello college, career changes, parenthood, divorce, grief, and retirement!), self-worth, addictions, and those wanting to explore their identity. Therapy with me integrates mindfulness, attachment-focused, and somatic techniques. I love teaching coping skills by doing them with my clients in session, encouraging you to try them out in the real world to see which ones work best for you in any given situation. While building self-awareness through psycho-education catapults many people into the process of change they seek (more of a “top-down”, cognitive approach), most of my clients benefit from a two-pronged approach that also incorporates the body’s wisdom. The deeper healing work of challenging negative core beliefs through feeling emotions in one’s body and practicing nervous system regulation skills (a more “bottom-up” approach), rewrites your internal narrative in a somatic way.
Ecotherapy
You can opt to take therapy outdoors by meeting out on the trail for a walk or sitting side-by-side on a cozy park bench. We can also integrate benefits of nature-based therapy in an indoor or online session. I offer holistic, embodied approaches that can help you manage anxiety and stress, process trauma and losses, move through life transitions, and develop the courage to take the next step in your life. Nature has a way of supporting us to feel more present, connected, regulated, and inspired. If you are up for going on a nature walk, know that the bilateral movement of putting one foot in front of the other can help accelerate your body’s innate healing capacity while you talk about your experiences. For some, not having to maintain direct eye contact while walking alongside each other makes talking about difficult topics more comfortable. Ecotherapy provides an opportunity to gain clarity and perspective, allowing us to feel more grounded and connected to the greater web of life, while reflecting on the resources and wisdom that reside within each of us.
Trauma Therapy
Trauma is defined as anything our brain is not prepared to handle and exceeds our ability to cope with at the time. This means trauma is not only experienced by veterans of war or those who have been abused. In fact, there are many types of trauma that consist of subtle, repeated interactions and experiences that leave a person feeling unseen, unheard, or uncared for. And sometimes trauma is about what we didn’t get but needed, and we were neglected or felt forgotten. Trauma can be what should have happened, but didn’t.
Traumatic experiences often entail a threat to life or overall well-being, but any situation that leaves a person feeling overwhelmed and alone can be traumatic, even if it doesn’t involve physical harm. It’s not the objective facts that determine whether an event is traumatic, but how we experience the event. As trauma expert Dr. Gabor Maté explains: “Trauma is not what happens to you. Trauma is what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you.” In other words, the traumatic event or repeated interactions cause you to form negative core beliefs about yourself and/or the world that allow you to get through it—which is adaptive from a survival standpoint—but over time, these limiting beliefs weigh you down and keep you stuck in the past.
The more anxious, paralyzed, or hurt a person feels during the experience, the more likely they are to encounter long-term effects from the trauma. Also, whether or not there was support available at the time to process the trauma will determine how it impacts the person throughout their life. Trauma can be a one-time event or it can build up over time. Complex trauma can develop from lack of secure attachment, instability in the home, neglect, all forms of abuse, abandonment, criticism, grief, or loss.
Having a trauma-informed lens in therapy means recognizing that some of your difficulties (symptoms) may have their roots in trauma. Many times those roots run deep in our ancestry, our culture, and our society, and we bear heavy burdens that we don’t have to carry anymore. When we acknowledge, understand, and reframe our traumatic experiences with support, we can get unstuck from patterns that no longer serve us and feel relatively safe and free again.
IFS, EMDR, and IFS-Informed EMDR Therapy
What is IFS? Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a therapeutic approach that recognizes the complexity of the human mind and the existence of various internal parts within each of us. These parts often hold different beliefs, emotions, and memories, and can sometimes be in conflict with one another, leading to internal struggles and self-sabotaging patterns. IFS helps individuals access their internal parts, understand their roles and intentions, and cultivate a harmonious relationship among them. This allows for deep healing and transformation, as individuals learn to lead from a place of self-compassion and authenticity. Learn more about IFS here.
What is EMDR? Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a powerful somatic psychotherapy technique that facilitates the processing and healing of traumatic memories. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation, such as eye movements or self-tapping, to activate the brain's natural healing mechanisms. This helps individuals reprocess distressing memories and release associated negative emotions, beliefs, and sensations. EMDR has been widely recognized as an effective and evidence-based treatment for various forms of trauma, anxiety, and depression, and has shown remarkable results in reducing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and other related conditions. Learn more about EMDR here.
Why combine the two? Sometimes, only one modality can be enough to help you heal. More often, we need to use multiple tools in our tool belt to get at the root of the issue. While EMDR is often effective in cases of single-event traumas, in complex trauma we have to seek permission from our protective states before we can fully process our deeper wounding. And that’s where IFS can help; it’s like family systems theory, ecosystems theory, and attachment theory turned outside in. These two modalities complement each other beautifully and can foster the right conditions for the mind-body’s natural healing process to emerge. Learn more about IFS-Informed EMDR here.
“The Internal Family Systems Model is an elegant, efficient, and powerful ego state treatment modality that, when used with EMDR, can increase its range of effectiveness.”
— Richard Schwartz & Joanne Twombly
“Every human has a true authentic self. Trauma is the disconnection from it and healing is the reconnection to it.”
— Gabor Maté
