Services
About My Clients
You might be looking for someone who can help you explore your relationship to gender or sexuality without sex-negative biases. You might be interested in addressing past sexual traumas or barriers to intimacy that show up in your current sexual relationships. Or, you might want to develop more ability to identify and express emotions. I specialize in working with pelvic pain, erectile dysfunction, chronic pain/disability that inhibits sexual function, sexual shame, and trans-affirming care.
My Background and Approach
I see the therapeutic relationship as both a safe container and a laboratory where clients can explore the feelings and reactions that often show up in their relationships. By discussing what shows up in your relationships outside of therapy and identifying where those patterns might be showing up between us, we can develop new ways of communicating and behaving that you can apply to your relationships outside of therapy. After an intake process where we discuss your history and goals, I often start by teaching clients practical skills they can immediately apply to regulating emotion and managing distress outside of session. Once we have that foundation, we shift to processing the underlying beliefs, behaviors, and memories that are causing the distress. I currently work in private practice and teach Sexuality Across the Lifecycle at University of Chicago. I'm also a theatre artist and ten years of my research focused on actors’ mental health.
My Personal Beliefs and Interests
As an attachment-focused therapist, I'm thinking both about the security of attachment a client experienced with caregivers and the security of attachment the client has with the world around them. Having a secure attachment with the culture that you live in is what it means to have privilege. Systems of oppression function by dismissing and mistreating people with marginalized identities, providing an insecure attachment with the greater culture. Many clients have had damaging or discriminatory experiences with healthcare providers and it's part of my value system to offer a reparative experience. Trusting a therapist is just like developing trust in any other kind of relationship - it takes time and requires the therapist to be consistent. Part of my approach is focused on using the therapeutic relationship as a vehicle for clients to have affirming, secure experiences in relationship which supports the development of new beliefs and behaviors.