Services
- Individual
- Couples
- Family
- Group
About My Clients
You're thoughtful, capable, and tired of the gap between what you mean and how it lands with the people you love. I work with individuals and couples who feel stuck in their relationships, with people in the perinatal season — trying, pregnant, postpartum, or navigating infertility, and with high achievers who built a life that looks right from the outside and doesn't feel like theirs from the inside.
My Background and Approach
I'm a Resident in Marriage and Family Therapy and a Resident in Counseling in Virginia, supervised by Stefania Gheorghiu, LMFT, and Megan MacCutcheon, LPC. I've trained in various couples and family counseling methodologies, DBT skills, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, compassion-focused and somatic approaches, and Game to Grow's therapeutic roleplaying model. I work primarily from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy with systems theory as the backbone. We get clear on what matters to you, notice where you're stuck in beliefs or behaviors that don't benefit you, and build the capacity to act on your values while the difficult feelings are still present. With couples I'm looking at the pattern between you, not litigating who's right. I taught French for years before this, and I draw on my experiences as a multicultural and multilingual person to help people communicate and strengthen bonds with others.
My Personal Beliefs and Interests
I believe people are fundamentally growth-oriented, driven to love, be loved, and feel safe. When needs are met and actions line up with values, people move toward what matters largely on their own. Additionally, I believe that all behavior makes sense in context, including the behavior you're least proud of. There's an old idea about two arrows. The first is the pain of the situation, which you don't choose. The second is what you do to yourself about it, which is frequently optional. A lot of therapy is learning to tell them apart: you can't choose your first thought, but you can choose whether to let that thought dictate what happens next. The goal isn't comfort. Growth happens at the edge, in challenge that stretches you without flattening you, and part of my job is helping you find that edge and stay near it. Acceptance is not putting up with what's unjust, but letting the pain of it exist without turning it into self-blame, so you have the bandwidth to act.