LPC, 10 years of experience
I'm a therapist who gets it - really gets it - because I'm living it too. While everyone talks about the empty nest, I work with parents navigating the increasingly common "crowded nest," where adult kids have boomeranged back home or never quite launched in the first place. My own kids are in their 20s, and honestly, I'm more involved in their lives now than I ever imagined I'd be at this stage. I've become one of their main pillars as they navigate today's brutal job market, digital overwhelm, neurodiversity, and all the curveballs life throws at emerging adults. Sound familiar? Through my own journey and years of working with families, I've learned that we parents often lose ourselves in the process of supporting our struggling adult children. We abandon our own needs, race ahead to clear their paths, and exhaust ourselves anticipating everyone else's needs but our own. I bring together wisdom from the School of Hard Knocks, my clients' face-plants and triumphs, mindful practices, and a toolbox that blends science-backed strategies with a healthy dose of intuitive approaches. My style is warm, direct, and refreshingly real—no therapy-speak, just honest conversations about the messy, beautiful work of family life. Whether you're drowning in your adult child's latest crisis or struggling to find yourself again after years of putting everyone else first, you don't have to figure this out alone. We were never meant to walk this path in isolation.
Let's be honest–first sessions can feel a little awkward, and that's totally normal. Our first meeting will be more structured than our usual sessions, but I promise it won't feel like sitting through a corporate orientation. Yes, we'll cover the necessary business stuff–confidentiality, policies, and logistics–but I'll explain everything in plain language, not therapy-speak. Think of it as getting the housekeeping out of the way so we can focus on the real work in future sessions. I want you to interview me as much as I'm learning about you. This is your chance to ask me anything: my background, training, why I chose to work with parents navigating the crowded nest, or what my approach actually looks like in practice. If you're wondering whether I've ever dealt with a 28-year-old who refuses to do their own laundry or a brilliant kid who can't seem to hold down a job, ask away. I believe you should feel confident about who you're trusting with your family's story. The heart of our first session is understanding your unique situation. The bulk of our time will be a natural conversation where I ask questions to understand what brought you to my virtual door. Are you here because you're drowning in your adult child's latest crisis? Struggling to set boundaries without feeling like a terrible parent? Trying to figure out if you're helping or enabling? Or maybe you're just exhausted from being everyone's go-to person and need to remember who you are outside of that role. I'll want to know what you've already tried, what's worked (even a little bit), and what's left you feeling more stuck. If this involves your whole family system, we'll talk about whether bringing your adult child into future sessions makes sense or if you need to start by working on your own responses first. We'll also talk about what you actually want from our work together. Sometimes parents come in thinking they want to "fix" their adult child, and we discover the real work is learning how to step back and reclaim their own lives. Other times, families need help changing communication patterns that have everyone walking on eggshells. There's no wrong answer–I just want to make sure we're aiming for the same target. After our first session, the real work begins. Our ongoing sessions will start with a simple check-in: "What's most important for us to focus on today?" You don't need to come with a formal agenda, but I always ask so I don't accidentally spend time on something that f
I believe in healing at the root, not just managing symptoms. While many therapists focus on coping strategies for surface-level struggles, I help you dig deeper to understand the "why" behind your patterns. I call this work "updating your operating system"–we go back to find where you first formed the habits and beliefs that aren't serving you anymore, then bring you forward to where your full agency and power reside. This isn't about blame or dwelling in the past; it's about understanding how you got where you are so you can consciously choose where you want to go. I create genuine therapeutic alliance–and research shows this matters most. The single variable that correlates most strongly with successful therapy outcomes isn't the specific method used or years of experience–it's whether you feel truly understood and emotionally safe with your therapist. I've built this kind of connection with clients across wildly different backgrounds, ages, and circumstances. Some have never been to therapy before; others are seasoned veterans. What they share is the sense that I genuinely "get" them and have their back. I embrace acceptance as the surprising key to real change. Here's what might shock you: the most important dimension of lasting change isn't grit, goals, or someone pushing you forward. It's acceptance. Not the passive, resigned kind–but the courageous turning toward where you are with care and curiosity. Whether you're stuck in patterns you chose (like over-functioning for your adult kids) or facing circumstances you definitely didn't choose (like watching your child struggle with mental health), acceptance allows you to look squarely at reality and move forward from a place of truth rather than resistance. I work with your natural wisdom, not against it. My approach blends evidence-based techniques with what I call "a healthy dose of woo." I trust that when we create the right conditions, your own inner knowing will guide us exactly where we need to go. This means our sessions are organic and collaborative rather than rigid or prescribed. We build agendas together, and I follow your lead while offering tools and insights when they're most needed. There's a magical quality to this work when we trust the process. I specialize in the particular challenges of your life stage. Having worked with hundreds of clients, I understand the unique pressures of parenting adult children in today's world. I know what it's like to be more involved in your twe
You're the parent who never signed up for this extended tour of duty. Maybe your 25-year-old moved back home after college and seems stuck in neutral. Maybe your adult child never quite launched and you're wondering if you're helping or enabling. Or perhaps you're supporting a young adult through mental health challenges, addiction recovery, or neurodivergent struggles, and you're exhausted from being their primary emotional support system. You love your kids fiercely, but you're also quietly wondering: "When is it my turn?" You might be in your 50s or 60s, looking around at friends whose kids seem to have their acts together while you're still cleaning the dishes from in front of the tv or wondering when your kid will put down their screens and plug into life. You're dealing with the "failure to launch" phenomenon—and it's complicated. Your adult child might be struggling with anxiety, depression, ADHD, or other neurodivergent traits that make traditional adulting extra challenging. Maybe they're brilliant but can't seem to get out of their own way. Perhaps they're overwhelmed by today's shitshow of a job market for entry-level folks, paralyzed by perfectionism, or genuinely need more support than their peers - and you're trying to figure out what's normal struggle versus when to step in. You oscillate between wanting to help and worrying you're creating dependency. You lie awake wondering if you're being too supportive or not supportive enough. The guilt is real, and so is the exhaustion. You've lost yourself in the process of supporting everyone else. Somewhere along the way, you became the family's emotional shock absorber, financial safety net, and problem-solver-in-chief. You anticipate needs before they're even expressed. You drop everything when crisis calls. You've gotten so good at being needed that you've forgotten who you are when nobody needs anything from you. You might be dealing with your own midlife transitions - career changes, aging parents, relationship shifts, health concerns - but there's always someone else's emergency taking precedence. You're tired of being the strong one, the reliable one, the one everyone turns to but who has nowhere to turn themselves. You're ready to change the family dance, even though it feels scary. You're starting to recognize that your well-intentioned helping might not actually be helping. You're curious about boundaries but don't know how to implement them without feeling guilty or cruel. You wan
It's so helpful to create a map of the interplay between thoughts, emotions, behavior, and results and find the root of these dimensions of mental health through underlying beliefs. It's like turning on the light in a dark room - suddenly everything is illuminated.
One of my favorite quotes is from the writer Susan David, who says, "Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life." This quote represents the heart of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy because it invites people to identify their core values so that they can then act on behalf of those values, even when it's a bit of a stretch.
This approach helps to rewire the neural pathways in the brain that have been formed from traumatic experiences. Before I was trained in EMDR, I thought it was a little woo. I still think it's kinda woo, but I've seen it work and I've experienced myself.
Sometimes talk therapy just can't access the deep emotional wounds that drive behavior that isn't serving us. Hypnotherapy reaches those wounds in ways that allow release and invite transformation.