Services
About My Clients
I usually work with self-conscious outsiders, who may even be helpers or leaders, who are stressed out by people or who struggle with boundaries. They want to be free of the intense self-criticism and instead feel belonging and connection. In working with me, they develop a healthy sense of self-compassion, grow empowered to connect with people authentically, and find their voice in the world.
My Background and Approach
My main therapeutic modality is Emotionally Focused Therapy. This attachment-based approach is non-pathologizing: we trust that a person’s inner experience as well as their actions make sense in some way that is trying to help. What has healing power is when you have enough safety in a relationship (e.g. with a therapist) that you can recognize your patterns and befriend your own emotions with compassion. Once you have new, more connected emotional experiences in real time, you start to find a new sense of self. Your capacity to navigate human experience grows. Then you can safely begin to deepen into difficult experiences from the past, to now directly feel and see and integrate them in a new, better, fuller way. Gradually, these changes shape a new story of yourself and your life, and naturally lead to new actions. This approach is known to be helpful across a variety of diagnoses but especially with those facing depression, anxiety, and the effects of trauma.
My Personal Beliefs and Interests
I may be a great fit if: ~~ you want to do attachment work ~~ you practice mindfulness, or want to start ~~ you want to be more aware of your body or do somatic work ~~ you've exhausted your options with talk therapy ~~ you are right-brained, artistic, holistic, or intuitive ~~ you don't just want new tools and behavioral skills, you want to re-organize your basic operating system for doing life ~~ you're already committed to personal growth or have done a lot of work on yourself ****** My special affiliations: ~~ born and raised outside the US ~~ dysfunctional family ~~ spiritual seeker from when I was a kid ~~ lived through the violent fall of communism ~~ spent many years in a cult ~~ highly intelligent and highly sensitive ~~ am queer in a number of ways