Licensed to practice in 2 states. Specializes in Addiction, LGBTQ, Women's Issues and 10 more.
(she/her)
Clients say this provider is
You can understand exactly why you keep doing something and still feel completely stuck in it. With 20 years as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, I work with adults who are tired of repeating patterns that no longer work for them. My style is active, relational, practical, and conversational. We look beyond what happened to what keeps happening—what activates the pattern, what keeps it going, and where we can actually interrupt it. I work with anxiety, depression, trauma, grief, ADHD, neurodivergence, relationship difficulties, serious illness, major life transitions, and burnout from carrying too much for too long. I’m LGBTQ+ affirming and welcoming of diverse identities, sexualities, and non-traditional relationship structures. I’m genuinely open-minded about how people build relationships and live their lives. You’re unlikely to shock me, and vanilla is certainly not a requirement for admission. You don’t have to clean yourself up for therapy. Bring the contradictions, questionable decisions, weird relationship dynamics, dark humor, 47 tabs of self-help information, and the thing you’re pretty sure will make me judge you. I probably won’t. My approach is integrative, drawing from CBT, motivational interviewing, attachment-based work, somatic and nervous-system awareness, mindfulness, behavioral strategies, and psychoeducation. I’m endlessly curious about what makes people tick, and I translate therapy concepts into normal language. I’m warm and supportive, but I’m not a therapist who just nods and agrees with everything you say. I’ll believe you about your experience while sometimes lovingly questioning the story your brain has built around it. I’ll notice patterns, contradictions, play devil’s advocate, and help turn insight into something useful outside the therapy room. We’ll probably laugh in therapy, sometimes about things that objectively aren’t funny. Humans are weird. Therapeutic fit matters enormously to me, and I have no ego about being the right therapist for everyone.
Before we meet, you’ll complete intake paperwork and questionnaires so I already have some background. Since sessions are virtual, find a private place where you can talk openly and make sure you have a decent internet connection. We’ll start with the practical stuff—confidentiality, policies, and any questions you have—and then get into what actually brought you to therapy. I’ll ask about what’s happening now, your symptoms, relationships, relevant history, past therapy, medications, coping strategies, and what’s worked before (and what absolutely hasn’t). We’ll also talk about safety when relevant and begin figuring out what you want to be different. But the first session isn’t just me collecting information. I’m doing therapy while I’m getting to know you. I’ll ask follow-up questions, follow threads that seem important, notice patterns, and start connecting things that may not seem related. If there’s something useful we can start working on right away, we will. You don’t need to show up with a perfectly organized story or squeeze your entire life into 50 minutes. I typically complete a full psychosocial assessment over sessions two and three, so we have time to understand your history, relationships, experiences, strengths, and the bigger context of your life without rushing through it. Therapist fit matters—a lot. The first few sessions are also about figuring out whether I’m the right therapist for you. I have no ego about that. I can be a good therapist and still not be the right therapist for you. If something I say doesn’t fit, tell me. If my style doesn’t work for you, that’s useful information, not a failure on either side. As we go, I may offer ideas about what could be happening or what might be keeping you stuck. Those are hypotheses, not declarations. You’re always welcome to tell me I completely missed the point. I also use the client portal between sessions for psychoeducation. I may send you something that introduces an idea we’re starting to explore, explains therapy language or a psychological concept in plain English, or reinforces something we discussed in session. It gives you a chance to think about things outside of our 50 minutes together and lets us spend more of our session applying those ideas to your actual life. You don’t need to impress me, filter yourself, or have the right answers. Just show up as you are. We’ll figure out where to start.
One of my biggest strengths is seeing patterns. I tend to remember details, notice inconsistencies, and connect things that may have happened weeks apart. I’m interested in the pattern underneath the pattern—not just what happened, but what you thought it meant, what you felt, what you did next, and how that response may be keeping the same cycle going. I’m also good at taking complicated psychological ideas and making them useful in real life. You don’t need to know therapy language. I’ll explain concepts, use examples, ask questions, and help us find a way of understanding something that actually makes sense to you. I’m active and engaged in sessions. I don’t just listen to what happened during your week and send you back out to have another one. I’ll ask follow-up questions, challenge assumptions, point out connections, and help you figure out what can actually change. I’m comfortable holding two things as true at the same time. Your reaction can make complete sense based on your history and still not be helping you now. Someone can hurt you without intending to. You can understand why you developed a coping strategy and decide you don’t want to keep using it. I don’t think validation requires us to pretend everything you think or do is working for you. I’m direct, but I’m not interested in shame. I’ll tell you what I’m noticing, and you’re allowed to disagree with me. I don’t need to be right. I’d rather revise my understanding than force your experience into my theory. I’m especially strong with clients who already have insight but haven’t been able to turn that insight into change. Understanding yourself matters—but eventually we need to figure out what you’re going to do differently. My goal is for therapy to help you understand your own patterns so well that eventually you start catching them before I do.
I work especially well with curious, engaged, quick-thinking people who already have insight but still feel stuck. You may understand where a pattern came from and even recognize it while it’s happening, but understanding it hasn’t been enough to actually change it. Many of the clients I work with are functioning in their everyday lives while privately struggling with anxiety, depression, grief, burnout, relationship problems, or major life changes. They may be the person other people rely on and have gotten very good at continuing to function even when things aren’t going particularly well. I’m especially well suited for people who want to understand what’s underneath a recurring problem rather than only manage the immediate symptom. We might work on communication, boundaries, relationships, overthinking, avoidance, emotional regulation, or coping strategies that once served a purpose but aren’t working anymore. I also work well with people who have been in therapy before and gained plenty of insight but are left wondering what they’re actually supposed to *do* with it. I’m active in therapy, so I tend to be a good fit for people who want an engaged therapist, appreciate direct feedback, are willing to question their own assumptions, and want what happens in therapy to eventually change something outside of therapy. My practice is secular and LGBTQ+ affirming, and I welcome people whose lives, identities, or relationships don’t fit neatly into traditional boxes. You don’t have to be good at therapy. Curiosity, honesty, and a willingness to look at your own patterns give us plenty to work with.
One-size-fits-all therapy makes absolutely no sense to me. You’re not a diagnosis with legs. My sessions tend to be conversational and relatively unstructured rather than following a workbook or predetermined agenda. We start with what’s actually happening in your life and go from there. I pull from different evidence-based approaches depending on you—your brain, history, relationships, nervous system, strengths, and what you need that day. Sometimes we need to understand where a pattern came from. Sometimes we need to challenge it. And sometimes we need to stop analyzing the damn thing and try something different. If you’re looking for worksheets every week and highly structured sessions, I may not be your person. The goal isn’t to perform therapy correctly; it’s for your life to actually get better. I’m a big believer in understanding what the hell your brain is doing and why. I use psychoeducation throughout therapy to help make confusing experiences make more sense—whether we’re talking about trauma responses, attachment, ADHD, avoidance, emotional regulation, cognitive filters, relationships, grief, or nervous-system activation. I’ll explain therapy concepts in normal human language, and I often send articles, exercises, videos, or other resources through the client portal between sessions when they reinforce something we’re working on. You absolutely do not need to become an amateur psychologist. But sometimes having a name and explanation for something you’ve experienced for years can be incredibly powerful.
Our brains are constantly interpreting what’s happening—and they aren’t always reliable narrators. We’ll look at how your thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and experiences influence each other and where you keep getting stuck. My version of CBT is practical and conversational, not worksheet-heavy. I’m much more interested in helping you recognize a pattern while it’s happening on a random Tuesday than having you complete a packet about cognitive distortions. We’ll question assumptions, consider other explanations, experiment with doing things differently, and pay attention to what actually works.
Sometimes your brain knows you’re okay while your nervous system strongly disagrees. Stress, anxiety, and trauma don’t just live in our thoughts—they show up in our bodies, avoidance patterns, and what our nervous systems have learned to interpret as threatening. I incorporate body awareness, grounding, nervous-system regulation, and somatic hierarchy work to help you recognize what happens as you become activated and gradually build your capacity to tolerate experiences your brain or body has learned to avoid. We’re not trying to force you through something overwhelming. We work with your nervous system, paying attention to where you are within your window of tolerance and expanding what feels manageable over time. The goal is not simply to know that you’re safe or capable. It’s helping your body learn it, too.
Humans are spectacularly capable of wanting two completely opposite things at the same time. You can desperately want something to change while another part of you keeps doing the thing. Instead of shaming you for the contradiction, we’ll get curious about it. What is this behavior doing for you? What would you lose by changing it? What actually matters enough to make change worthwhile? You get to make your own decisions. My job is to help you understand them.
Relationships have a way of finding every button we have and pushing all of them—sometimes at once. We’ll look at the patterns that show up in your relationships: how you connect, protect yourself, respond to rejection or conflict, ask for what you need, set boundaries, and make sense of other people’s behavior. I pay attention to attachment patterns, communication, emotional triggers, bids for connection, rupture and repair, and the stories we bring into current relationships from earlier experiences. We’ll also look at the cycle between people rather than automatically deciding who is “the problem.” The therapeutic relationship matters, too. Therapy gives us a real relationship where we can notice patterns with curiosity, try something different, and sometimes talk openly about what’s happening between us. The goal isn’t to teach you the “right” way to have relationships. It’s to help you understand your patterns, figure out which ones still serve you, and build relationships that feel more secure, authentic, and like your own.
14 ratings with written reviews
September 9, 2026
Returning to provider. Find her direct and challenging when helping me problem solve. She has an innate ability to help me confront feeling and thoughts to facilitate my improvement. She helps me off the ceiling and puts me on the floor
May 13, 2026
Amy has helped me navigate motherhood and childhood cancer for the last couple of years. She is a wonderful therapist and I can’t thank her enough for what she does.
April 8, 2026
I’ve been searching for a therapist I truly connect with for a long time, I didn’t expect much when I first found Amy—but wow, was I wrong. Amy listens in a way that makes you feel genuinely heard and understood, and she offers thoughtful, constructive feedback that actually helps you grow. I find myself looking forward to our sessions instead of dreading them. She is authentic, intelligent, and incredibly warm—I feel like I’ve known her for years. I’m so grateful to have found her.