Licensed to practice in Texas and accepts 10 insurances. Specializes in Trauma and PTSD, Anxiety, Life Transitions and 10 more.
(she/her)
New to Grow
I know it can feel overwhelming to scroll through profile after profile, hoping to find someone who feels like the right fit. Therapy isn’t one-size-fits-all, and I don’t believe in trying to squeeze people into neat little boxes. Over nearly 25 years of working with children, teens, adults, and families, I’ve learned that no two stories are alike, and no two people need the same thing. I believe therapy begins with relationship. I also believe you know your own story best, even if you’re still learning to understand it. That’s why I see my role as a guide who listens, asks good questions, and, when it’s helpful, helps you look at your story from a different perspective. Together, we’ll build on your strengths and work toward a life that better reflects what matters most to you.
My goal is to make our first session feel safe and comfortable. I often think about a first therapy session like going swimming. Some people cannonball straight into the deep end. Others sit on the edge, dip their toes in the water, and take their time. I’ve worked with people who have done both—and everything in between. There isn’t a right way to begin. My job is to listen, understand what you need, and figure out how I can best show up for you. Whether you’re ready to dive right in or prefer to wade slowly, I’ll adjust as we get to know each other and discover what works best for you. I’ll let you in on a little secret: even after all these years, I still get a little nervous before first sessions too. Beginnings can feel uncertain because we’re starting a brand-new relationship. We don’t have to figure everything out in one appointment. We simply begin, get to know each other, and take the next step together.
Over nearly 25 years, I’ve been invited into people’s homes and lives and sat around kitchen tables with people whose experiences were very different from my own. I learned to listen first, stay curious, and not assume I know someone’s story. Sometimes I’ll mostly listen. Sometimes I’ll challenge you, ask a question that makes you think, or help you notice a connection you hadn’t seen. Sometimes there will be humor. I may even share something I’ve learned from my own life, including my mistakes. After all, somebody should learn from them. Therapy with me is a real relationship, but one outside your everyday life—we don’t have to argue about the dishes. I encourage you to tell me when something isn’t working. You can disagree with me, correct me, or even tell me off. Therapy can be a place to practice hard conversations and discover that a relationship can survive them. I’m warm, curious, sometimes unconventional, and very much human.
Many of the people I work best with are difficult to put into a neat category. They may have spent much of their lives feeling misunderstood, different, overwhelmed, or simply not quite seen. Some are neurodivergent or have lived with mental health challenges for years. Others are navigating trauma, grief, family challenges, caregiving, major transitions, or simply the accumulated weight of a complicated life. I enjoy working with children, teens, and adults across a wide range of abilities and experiences: autistic and other neurodivergent people; gifted children who became gifted adults—and gifted children who grew up wondering what happened to all that potential they were told they had; people with intellectual and developmental disabilities; foster and adoptive families; families rebuilding after CPS involvement; caregivers; and people whose lives haven’t followed the path they expected. I’ve learned that people have their own kinds of wisdom, and I’m interested in discovering yours. You don’t have to come to therapy already knowing what you want, ready to change, or even entirely sure you want to be there. Ambivalence doesn’t scare me. Neither does resistance. Sometimes trust takes time. You can be uncertain, frustrated, guarded, or still figuring things out. I’m interested in understanding who you are, including the parts of you that may not be sure about therapy yet. I work especially well with people who want to be seen as more than a diagnosis, a problem, or a demographic—even when those things are meaningful parts of who they are.
I believe you are the expert on your own life, even when you don’t have all the answers yet. My job isn’t to sit across from you with a clipboard and tell you how to live it. I bring my experience, curiosity, and clinical perspective, while you bring something I can never have: your experience of being you. The journey is yours, and I walk alongside you. We make room for the difficult and the hopeful, for seriousness and laughter, and work together to make sense of what you find along the way and where you want to go.
At our most basic, humans are a social species. We are made for connection. Our relationships are where we learn, grow, love, belong, and sometimes where we are hurt. We talk a lot about attachment in childhood, but our need for connection doesn’t disappear when we grow up. The relationships we’ve had can shape what we expect from others and what happens when we feel close, vulnerable, rejected, or alone. I see therapy as a real relationship, but also a kind of practice relationship. It gives us a place to build trust, work through misunderstandings, repair when things go wrong, and sometimes experience a different way of being in relationship with another person.
A famous time traveler once said, “We’re all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?” I believe our stories matter. They shape how we understand ourselves, our relationships, and what has happened to us. Narrative therapy gives us room to explore those stories, question the ones that no longer fit, and discover parts of your story that may have been overlooked.
Trauma-informed has become something of a catchphrase, but for me it comes from more than 25 years of sitting with people in the midst of very real trauma. Every person’s experience is different, and there is no contest over whose trauma is worse or whose pain counts more. One of the hardest things about trauma is how often we hide it, even from ourselves, because it can feel as though no one else could bear to be there with us in it. You don’t have to protect me from your story or make it easier for me to hear. Trauma shapes us. We can’t pretend that what happened didn’t matter or didn’t change us. But it does not have to define us. Together, we can face what happened, recognize the strength and resilience that are already yours, and look for ways to lessen the hold trauma has on your life.
I chose the word eclectic deliberately. I don’t believe that every person who walks into therapy needs the same kind of therapy. Over the years, I’ve drawn from CBT, DBT skills, ACT, mindfulness, play therapy, psychodynamic and existential ideas, Internal Family Systems, and many other approaches. But eclectic also means being willing to adapt. I’ve adapted things I learned doing play therapy with children to work with adults, and I’ve used stories, metaphors, books, vision boards, humor, and sometimes something we come up with together because it makes sense for that particular person. Sometimes therapy is about changing something. Sometimes it’s about understanding why a pattern keeps repeating, making sense of where it came from, or figuring out how to live with something that can’t simply be fixed. I’m a constant learner, always looking for another way to understand something or another way to reach someone. I don’t expect you to fit neatly into a treatment model. I’d rather adapt what I’ve learned to fit the person sitting in front of me.