my approach

Many of my clients enter therapy feeling as though they’re living in only a very small corner of themselves and, overall, I think of the therapeutic process as a way to help you re-inhabit the fullness of who you are. I approach this work primarily through Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy. IFS is an experiential approach to therapy that invites us to connect with ourselves through a lens of compassionate curiosity. This lens allows us to engage with and reintegrate parts of ourselves that have gotten lost or hidden because of the experiences we’ve had.

While my therapeutic process itself is primarily IFS, several other somatic and mindfulness-based modalities inform how I engage with that process, and so does neuroscience. I focus quite a bit on the somatic aspect of things (e.g. “what’s happening in your body?”), as well as present-moment processing (e.g., “what’s happening right now?”). Many of my clients have had past experiences that generate fear of being fully present and embodied, so we do this work in a way that stays within a window of tolerability. It is possible to be simultaneously safe, present, and embodied.

I especially enjoy supporting clients who have centralized pain syndromes (e.g., fibromyalgia) and/or autoimmune diseases (e.g., lupus, RA, MS) alongside histories of trauma. Chronic health conditions are their own thing, separate from trauma, and yet they have many shared signatures in the body. By understanding these transdiagnostic overlaps, treatment for these types of co-occurring conditions can be simplified.