My approach to therapy

Hello fellow human, I’m really glad you are here. You might be feeling stuck, unhappy, and like things aren’t quite working. You’d like to make some changes but aren’t quite sure where to start.

We all have coping mechanisms that we developed early in life that we begin to bump into as adults. In our work together, we will explore how these served you for a time and then come up with new coping strategies that align with your goals. I will (gently) challenge you to practice being brave and courageous and prioritizing you own needs and joy.

I am here to help you find new ways of being in the world, new ways of being in relationship to yourself and others. As humans, we all have needs. We have been conditioned to think that being “needy” is a bad thing. I help clients learn to identify and communicate their needs.

I see therapeutic work as deeply collaborative, with informal conversation, thoughtful questions, and the frequent use of humor. I believe there are moments of beauty and joy, even within the darkest times. These small acts of noticing can help to remind us that all is not lost.

I'm curious to know you as a whole person: the parts of your life that feel messy or broken, and also when you feel most alive, what you are experiencing in your body, and what the world feels like to you.

I’m here to help you learn to befriend yourself, to begin working with yourself versus against yourself, which just leads to more suffering. I’m also here to challenge you to begin to make small changes in your life. This is how all growth happens, little by little.

Most importantly, my hope is that you feel fully accepted with me and safe to explore whatever challenges and issues are most pressing for you. I believe that the capacity for healing lives within all of us.

Education and Training

 

I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (#LH61484829). I hold a Masters of Arts in Psychology from Seattle University. My graduate training was grounded in existential phenomenological psychology, which means I’m interested in all the messiness of the human experience and understanding what gives life meaning. I am curious to explore with you your unique lived experience of being human.

Additionally, I completed a one year clinical training program through MEND Seattle (formerly known as Seattle Therapy Alliance), where I learned to apply a social justice framework to individual psychotherapy.