Services
- Individual
- Adolescent/Teen
About My Clients
I see adolescents 16+ and adults all the way through retirement. Vocation, skill development, empowerment, health concerns. Specialty areas: life transitions, artistic clients, and adolescence, such as the transition from high school to college, adjustments to college, post-college and other aspects of early adulthood through midlife and older adulthood. ADHD, ASD, depression, anxiety, social or relationship difficulties, academic concerns, spirituality, existential, climate change, societal.
My Background and Approach
My background is in the arts and Humanities. I draw on those powerful traditions to connect with my clients about their human experience. For many years I taught literature and writing, which informs my work with clients in Narrative therapy. Other modalities frequently utilized are IFS, Mindfulness, Brainspotting, Feminist theory, and CBT. Working collaboratively with clients, I help foster a healthy relationship to the self, which is often necessary to achieving one's goals. Having worked in many different settings, I am comfortable with a wide range of perspectives and backgrounds. My first goal is that my clients feel heard and understood. As we develop rapport, I empower clients by creating a toolbox of skills to cope with their situations, including language to use in difficult situations. I help shift belief patterns that may be holding people back and help them find resources for improvement. IFS is a highly effective tool used for trauma, which helps clients evolve.
My Personal Beliefs and Interests
My core belief is that it's challenging to be a person. I'm curious about how being a person is difficult for my client on a number of levels. I also feel that, today, we don't realize that being a person is challenging. We often expect things of ourselves that are not possible, sometimes leading to perfectionism. We expect to be "happy," "positive," or certain, or to do things quickly most of the time. Managing screen time, media time, media types, and ways to communicate can be tough on a day to day basis. Many landscapes--educational, professional, vocational, social, cultural--are shifting quickly. There is a lot of chaos to manage in the world, and that can affect a person's process. My theoretical orientation, as well as my worldview, is that our context (includes culture, family, physical reality, etc) affects our own internal reality. There are many existential issues people are facing today, and often uncertainty is challenging.