LMFT, 15 years of experience
Hi, I am a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist (LMFT) and have been licensed for over 20 years. I am a queer woman of color who specializes in helping individuals become the best version of themselves. This at times requires unlearning negative ideas we have been taught about our identity through race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and culture to name a few categories. It's a process of discovery that I like to do with curiosity and humor.
First session is mostly a meet and greet. If you're coming through insurance, that also means filling out some paperwork which means I will have a number of questions. But like everything else, I like to make it fun and an opportunity to get to know you. This may mean engaging in some laughter if appropriate. It could also mean helping you get a clearer idea what you want out of therapy and how I can help you get it.
My greatest strength is understanding that life can be hard and being humbled by that fact. From there, I love to help people feel their own power through laughter and story telling. Authenticity is an important part of this process. Learning to get to the essence of things quickly is another skill my experience has taught me well.
I love working with young adults from late adolescence to early adulthood where identity formation is most active. Truthfully, I love working with all people of all ages. Identity is a forever evolving concept. Learning to become conscious about this process and choosing who and what you'd like to be is an amazing feeling. I like helping people become aware of and unlearning negative coping skills and replacing them with healthier, more adaptive coping skills.
One of the most difficult emotional states to achieve is self acceptance. It is hard to be our authentic selves in a world full of demands and expectations. Learning to create this space in therapy and then in ourselves is a skill that helps us achieve all of our dreams. Never be afraid to dream big.
Becoming aware of the thoughts we have and the stories we tell ourselves is very empowering. Learning to change these thoughts and the narrative we have about our lives is an essential skill.
Different people have different ideas of what love is. A lot of this is dependant on what resonates with us from our primary caregiver growing. Sometimes love and abuse go together, for example. Learning to untangle abuse from love can help a person achieve a healthier type of love.