Services
About My Clients
My clients are individuals living with anxiety, depression, and PTSD related to chronic illness and/or lived experience of violence (individual, community, intergenerational, historical) and are seeking a safe and compassionate space for tending to and processing the past, connecting to the present, growing skills, and healing. I specialize in working with those living with complex medical diagnoses (or multiple symptoms with no diagnosis), challenging prognoses, and "watchful waiting."
My Background and Approach
I am a licensed clinical social worker (IL, WA, OR, and NY) and integrative psychotherapist with certification in the treatment of traumatic stress and holistic health counseling and nutrition. I have been an adjunct instructor on trauma-informed care and abuse and trauma at the graduate schools of social work of Columbia University and Portland State University. I believe in working with every client as a whole person, not just as a collection of symptoms. My approach honors the body and spirit as well as the mind and recognizes the impact that lived experience - both internal as in the case of illness and external as with violence and oppression - has on shaping an individual's view of the world and themselves. My therapeutic approach is trauma/social justice informed, insight-oriented, and blends cognitive-behavioral, somatic experiencing, and mindfulness based techniques.
Why I Became a Therapist
My interest in social justice stems from growing up as a queer kid in 1980s NYC watching my father work tirelessly to make sure the law served those impacted by violence (including police brutality). I became a documentary TV producer where I had the privilege of meeting and sharing the stories of people from all walks of life - many of them survivors (and perpetrators) of violence. After 10 years, disillusioned by the inherent biases within media and recognizing that I could be doing much more to directly serve communities facing injustice, I quit and became a social worker; a path that allowed me to directly serve survivors of domestic violence, sexual/physical assault, gun violence, child abuse, and medical trauma in community mental health clinics and as the crime victim social worker in a large public hospital in NYC. I am also a person living with invisible disabilities and have learned firsthand the impact of ableism, including in medical settings.