Services
- Individual
- Group
Licensed Clinical Social Worker in North Canton, OH
While I’m not a huge fan of the term codependency, it is one of the most recognized terms for the dysfunction that occurs when boundaries between you and those around you are blurred to the point of high stress and even crisis. We are better for ourselves and for those we love and support when we have a clear understanding of where we begin and end and another person begins. Boundaries don’t shut people out. They allow us the safety to truly let safe and loving people in, and I am passionate about helping clients find the clarity needed to build safe, flexible, compassionate boundaries that allow each of them depth and meaning in relationships without losing a sense of self or giving too much of the self. When we learn healthy boundaries, we learn how to let people grow into their own understanding of self and internalize their own lessons.
I am animistic in my spiritual foundation, which is an experience of all things as having an essence, or a soul, and many of my practices are shamanic in foundation. I am passionate about helping clients find ways to ground their daily experience in a realistic and healthy balance of the practical every day and the sacred every day. My modern (broken path) shamanic mentoring is ongoing with Kelley Harrell, and began with a 2-year intensive program through the same instructor. As an anti-oppressive informed practitioner, I do bring thoughtful dialogue about cultural appropriation and responsible, ethical spiritual practices that do not take from oppressed cultures or perpetuate oppressive narratives.
After working for nearly a decade in the field of geriatric mental health, supporting family and professional caregivers, I have developed a particular passion for teaching and supporting clients to care for themselves in order to be more effective, compassionate, and healthy caregivers to others. After moving into private practice that passion has branched out into a deeper understanding of how we are ALL caregivers, responsible for (at a minimum) caring for ourselves within a culture that actively prevents or detracts from a healthy balance between what we need to be healthy and what we have to give to our loved ones, our clients, our jobs, our children, or our passion projects. We’re an exhausted culture with no permission to slow down or give our sacred and compassionate “NO,” and it’s my professional mission to give every one of my clients those permission slips. Less burn out, more balance.