Services
- Individual
- Couples
- Family
- Adolescent/Teen
About My Clients
Over the past twenty years, I’ve worked with clients experiencing a wide range of mental health issues. I utilize a variety of modalities including Existential Therapy, DBT, Sex Therapy, EMDR, Family Systems Therapy, and Dance Therapy. I believe that clients’ unique cultural context and socio-economic experience should inform therapy. This is a feminist and social justice-based perspective that encourages affirmation of minority identities. I work with individuals, couples, and families.
My Background and Approach
My training is rooted in over a decade spent as a wilderness therapy guide. Living in small groups taught me about what it really means to be human. This perspective is beneficial to my clients’ relationships, it informs the self-care habits I teach, and it helps me in explaining why creating meaning guards us from mental health issues. It is important to understand what therapy is and what it can do for you. My approach involves trauma-informed depth psychotherapy. We’ll start by working together to come to an understanding of each person, couple, or family in their own relational and cultural context, which is a form of narrative therapy. Sessions can involve discussion, somatic exercises, or movement practices as a way to facilitate the emotion that comes from telling your story. We will talk about psychotherapy theory as it applies to you and your situation. There will be an ongoing creative process to develop clear action steps for you to make changes in your life.
My Personal Beliefs and Interests
I think it’s helpful for my clients to know why I do this work. I come from a family with a lot of intergenerational trauma: war refugees, parental abandonment, sexual trauma, addiction, and suicide. My first step on the path to becoming a therapist was learning how to deal with my own anxiety and depression. Working in mental health treatment has led me to an understanding my own inner workings and it continually reminds me of where I can get myself into trouble. What keeps me in this field is a desire to share what I know. Taking care of yourself is a life-long practice. For me, that means time spent rock climbing, snowboarding, dancing, cooking, practicing yoga, traveling, and making and enjoying art. And, of course, I frequently revisit my own work with my relationships with others and my relationship with myself. I was raised as a Tibetan Buddhist, and this plays an integral part in my interpretation of the human experience. I have also been practicing yoga for 30 years.