I am a licensed professional counselor with a background in community mental health clinic settings and intensive fieldwork. Since 2016, I have had experience in assisting those who struggle with grief, trauma, anxiety, depression, racial/ethnic identity, and LGBTQIA2S+ issues. I use an integrative approach to therapy to care for individuals who have had to "be strong" for too long.
The first session is to get to know what brings you to therapy, in which I’ll ask questions, you can tell me what needs you have, and then we will make goals for future sessions.
I only aim to be genuine to who I am whenever I can which includes my professional persona. A good relationship is key to inspiring positive change and being my affirming, open-minded, empathetic, understanding, and (sometimes) humorous self is important to building a therapeutic alliance.
I seek to de-stigmatize mental healthcare within marginalized communities and provide a refuge where you can begin your journey to alignment. To be "strong" all of the time is harmful and improbable, vulnerability is not weakness, and to ask for help is not something to be ashamed of. I enjoy working with clients who are often the first in their families to recognize normalized dysfunction and the harm "keeping up appearances" has caused and seek to break the cycle of generational trauma.
Life outside of therapy does not stop and is not linear. Rigid or linear approaches are not appropriate for everyone or every session. There are times when education and skills training is appropriate and there are times when we need help processing our feelings about our experiences.
Psychological flexibility is the capacity to adapt to difficult experiences while remaining true to one’s values. ACT focuses heavily on this skill due to its many benefits. These include better resilience, emotional tolerance, and overall well-being.
How we interpret or think about a situation determines how we feel about it, which then determines how we'll react. However, in some situations, these same sort of assumptions can be harmful. CBT is based on the idea that our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are constantly interacting and influencing one another. CBT helps us to identify our irrational thinking patterns and work towards changing them.
Grief is normal and helps us to come to terms with the loss of someone or something important to us. Bereavement refers specifically to the period of mourning after the death of a loved one. There are times that grief can become a problem and trigger old traumas, or mental illness, or cause social distress. There's no right way to grieve. My job isn't to force anyone to pass through specific stages but to assist with coming to terms with the loss.