LMFT, 12 years of experience
New to Grow
I am an affirmative therapist and am LGBTQIA+ allied (I myself identify as gender queer and pansexual), BLM allied, Indigenous/native allied, API allied, Latinx allied, Disability allied, Deaf allied, Vegan allied (I myself am Vegan), and polyamory allied. I specialize in serving patients suffering suicide loss at any stage of the loss. I also specialize in attachment/family systems informed individual care and CBT-I (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia). I also hold particular interest and experience in serving adults with ASD, ID or DD, adult children of narcissists, those who have suffered brainwashing and those who have suffered paranormal trauma. I have years of experience in serving patients with a multitude of mental health and relational difficulties. I consider my orientation as a therapist to be first and foremost client-centered and strength-based. Although I utilize various therapeutic approaches, I chiefly consider myself to be a narrative/Rogerian therapist. This means that I work to help my patients take back the power and control over their own stories and assist them by co-authoring a narrative that truly witnesses and respects their traumas, tragedies, injustices, achievements, triumphs, milestones, strengths, and resiliency. I do this while holding empathy, congruency and unconditional positive regard as my three major tenants in the therapeutic alliance. I specialize in therapy for: adult individuals suffering depression, anxiety, interpersonal/relational difficulties, traumatic grief, suicide loss, relational and attachment traumas, victims of psychological torture/emotional abuse/brainwashing, adult children of narcissists, sufferers of paranormal traumas, military and first-responder trauma, vegans, LGBTQIA+, adults with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), Intellectual Disability (ID), Developmental disabilities (DD), people struggling with life stressors, and those struggling with identity.
We will likely be doing a clinical intake assessment which will mean that some of our time will consist of me asking a lot of diagnostic questions. You'll have the opportunity to hear about what I can provide, what I can't provide and a review of our informed consent and standards of care. We will aim to create goals together and set the stage for a therapeutic relationship that I hope will be beneficial and healing.
I tend to use humor when I can, and challenge my patients when I feel it's appropriate and needed. I'm extremely experienced in diagnostics and skills coaching as well as processing in the therapy setting. Most of my patients see results, to put it very simply. They must take the credit for most of the work, but I do believe I have consistently created a safe, healing, growth-oriented space for many people. I've had patients come back to me after a long period of feeling great and perhaps something comes up (normal for all of us), and they return because they feel comfortable in our therapeutic relationship and feel it has benefited them in the past.
I enjoy very much working with others in the LBGTQIA+ community, other women, other clinicians and first responders, other vegans who struggle with continuous grief and loss, those clients who respond well to humor mixed with compassion and honesty, and patients who have challenging family backgrounds.
ACT is an evidence-based practice that utilizes components of mindfulness and CBT, but adds in it's own devices and tools to get back in line with your own personal values and work toward your unique goals. In ACT we decipher how symptoms like depression or anxiety can keep us from acting in line with our own goals and values, thereby increasing the power of the symptoms and not the person. We work step by step in ACT to improve the ways we perceive life and new skills to cope with the difficult moments.
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like where we began. Attachment theory speaks to the fact that all humans learn how to live, relate and survive from their primary care figures. Attachment refers to the way we bond with others, and this type of therapy seeks to understand your unique story of attachment and how it impacts your current life, your relationship with others and your relationship to self.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is one of the most common types of therapy provided by most clinicians in this field. There is a reason for it being so common- it's evidence-based and proven to work well. In CBT we teach our clients about the relationship between thoughts, behaviors and emotions. We work on skills to assist clients with considering alternate perspectives which widens our vantage point and helps us take all things into account rather than just the negative or unhelpful. We also provide skills in CBT to help client's take actions that align with their preferred outcome in a situation and create sustained emotional changes.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia is another evidence-based practice aimed at teaching skills to get clients back to sleeping they way they should be. Insomnia can be co-morbid or even caused by other medical or mental health diagnoses, and is important to be treated simultaneously so that there is a mutual benefit to any improvements seen.
I operate as a client-centered/Rogerian therapist regardless of what tools or methods I use. This means I come from a place of curiosity, compassion, empathy, congruency and unconditional positive regard.