LICSW, 10 years of experience
New to Grow
Are you feeling disconnected from yourself or your loved ones? Confused about your life or simply unmotivated? Allow me to assist you in optimizing your life trajectory by connecting to your personal value sets, creating priorities, and the pathways to achieve your goals! I specialize in providing therapy to clients who are navigating a variety of life stressors, including unexpected job loss, workplace or relationship stress, grief and loss, as well as burnout, and compassion fatigue. I can also provide help to clients experiencing relationship and religious traumas.
In our first session together, my priority is to assist you to feel heard and understood. I often incorporate a somatic breathing exercise in the beginning of my sessions to assist clients to feel grounded to their present moment in the context of their busy lives and circumstances. As part of the first session, I incorporate "getting to know you" questions alongside hearing from you about your goals for therapy.
Originally from PA and currently based in DC, I am uniquely situated to assist individuals who have attempted to make a life for themselves in various localities throughout the US and as "expats" abroad. My extensive international experience living in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa has empowered me to support clients adjusting to new cultures, experiencing cultural shock or stress, and exploring new cultural identities.
My therapeutic approach is aimed towards helping clients gain clarity and confidence to reconnect with themselves and live a life they truly enjoy. As a person-centered and trauma-informed therapist, some areas I specialize in are PTSD, Racial Trauma, Religious Trauma, and Childhood Trauma. I have personal and professional experience in assisting clients through navigating cross-cultural and cross-racial relationships, and find passion in fostering an environment of cultural sensitivity to explore these dynamics.
What we resist, persists. Obviously this quote is not my own! But it holds significant truth. What we do not accept in life, will rage against us. I believe that acceptance does not equal approval. However, in using ACT in my practice, I will assist you in learning practical skills to not wage war against what life has brought you, but rather sit in a space of acknowledge between what you can and cannot control so that you learn to access and activate your own internal power.
Having lived in a variety of cultures myself through the US, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa, I believe that seeking to understand culture with humility and an open mind is the key to connecting with an individual. In working with me, I will assist you to be cognizant of and learn from your culture's unique sets of values, priorities, and norms to assist you in arriving at your own.
I specialize in assisting clients to connect back to themselves through ascertaining and developing their own personal value sets, priorities, goals, and dreams. Utilizing best practice therapy modalities, I combine somatic processing to help clients learn to be comfortable with themselves in the present moment - while learning from their past - to foster their ideal future. I regularly integrate breathing practices, meditation techniques, and body awareness in my work with clients.
If you are human, you are likely self-critical! Research shows that we tend to respond to ourselves with extreme judgement while bestowing grace to friends, family, and even strangers in a way that we will not grant for ourselves. In my work with clients, compassion and specifically self-compassion, is a significant pillar which we work to strengthen.
My extensive international experience living abroad has empowered me to support clients adjusting to new cultures, experiencing cultural shock or stress, and exploring new cultural identities. have personal and professional experience in assisting clients through navigating cross-cultural and cross-racial relationships, and find passion in fostering an environment of cultural sensitivity to explore these dynamics.