Ali Pickover

Recovering from an abusive relationship requires a specific kind of care. When your needs have been sidelined, it’s common to fall into a "caretaker" role, struggling with people-pleasing or deep self-blame, especially if you didn’t have early models for how to advocate for yourself. Our sessions focus on rebuilding trust in your own intuition. We work on unlearning survival habits that no longer serve you and finding empowerment through setting boundaries and reclaiming your voice.

Trauma often leaves your body stuck in a high-alert state long after the danger has passed. Whether you’re navigating nightmares, hypervigilance, or a constant sense of numbness, it makes complete sense that you’ve developed these ways to protect yourself. Often, the heaviest part is the lingering shame or self-blame that feels like it’s rewritten your future. We use evidence-based tools to turn down that internal alarm and help you move past avoidance so the world feels safe again.

Most couples get trapped in a "demand-withdraw" cycle: one person reaches out with frustration while the other shuts down to keep the peace. It’s an incredibly draining loop that leaves both people feeling lonely. Whether you’re in a high-conflict partnership or navigating a difficult breakup, we look at the attachment patterns driving these reactions. Our work is about understanding the logic of your dynamic so you can stop reacting from old wounds and start connecting again.

Recovering from an abusive relationship requires a specific kind of care. When your needs have been sidelined, it’s common to fall into a "caretaker" role, struggling with people-pleasing or deep self-blame, especially if you didn’t have early models for how to advocate for yourself. Our sessions focus on rebuilding trust in your own intuition. We work on unlearning survival habits that no longer serve you and finding empowerment through setting boundaries and reclaiming your voice.

IPT is a modern, present-focused psychodynamic therapy that explores how relationships and life circumstances shape your mood. It can be especially helpful for depression, PTSD, grief, and major life transitions. Rather than circling the past without movement, we focus on what is happening in your relationships now, so you feel more supported, more connected, and better able to cope.

EFT helps you get underneath the reactions that keep taking over in relationships. We look at patterns like demand and withdrawal, emotional shutdown, or feeling stuck between needing closeness and pushing it away. As these patterns become clearer, you can respond with more steadiness, more honesty, and a stronger sense of what you actually need.

After trauma, protective defenses can become a kind of armor: staying on guard, shutting down, people-pleasing, or pulling away from connection. These responses may have helped you survive, but they can also shape how you see yourself, what you expect from others, and how safe the world feels. Therapy helps you understand these patterns, work with their imprint in the body, and reconnect with yourself and others.