Psychotherapy is a form of personal exploration that typically involves using the intellect (conscious thought) to express psycho-spiritual-somatic experience (non-conscious) resulting in the release of conflict and tension, integration of dissociated internal parts, insight into and healthier relationships with others, integration into community, spiritual evolution, improved day-to-day functioning, and an ever-deepening comprehension of what one's path is. ​People enter into therapy because they are seeking support in self-exploration, relief from psychological, somatic, and spiritual suffering, and assistance developing relational skills with partner/s and friends.

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There are many types of psychotherapy that range from working with conscious experience through thought, feeling and behavior - as in the various Cognitive Behavioral Therapies - to delving deeply into non-conscious experience to explore one's mind/heart/body and develop insight about how they came to be who they are. I integrate psychodynamic techniques (insight-oriented, relational, and engaged with non-conscious experience), somatic skills, mindfulness skills, and Internal Family Systems interventions.

 

Since the time of Freud through today, most of the field of mental health labels the countless manifestations of suffering as "symptoms." To say that a person is symptomatic is to claim that they are ill, which is a complicated act with psychological and political implications. For some, receiving diagnostic labels is an affirming recognition that allows them to feel taken seriously and to seek appropriate care. For others, this labeling makes individual a form of suffering that they are carrying on behalf of others. It pathologizes within the individual a problem that originates from familial, historical, and systemic forces. In this case, an individual's suffering is more skillfully located as a burden that the individual has been forced to bear because there have been no other options. This can be especially true when a person is a member of a community that has been historically marginalized and/or alienated.

 

​I have expertise working with adolescents and emerging adults and their families, specifically those who are queer and trans. My work is social justice-informed and incorporates an understanding of how larger systems impact us, those that structure the various forms of discrimination and oppression (racial and ethnic, sexual, gendered, religious, dis/ability, body discrimination, neurodivergence) that we all encounter and have to navigate.