Psychotherapy
for individuals
My approach to working with therapy clients is collaborative and proactive. I aim to help my clients find the balance between insight and action in the therapy process.
I utilize a number of approaches, including Internal Family Systems (IFS), Somatic Experiencing (SE), EMDR therapy, and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). I believe in tailoring my approach according to each client’s concerns, challenges, and unique sociocultural backgrounds with regard to family, race, ethnicity, class, gender identity expression, sexual orientation, religion, and ability. I am committed to helping people approach health and growth holistically, with consideration of the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual factors that affect who they are and how they experience the world.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy
My main therapy approach is Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy. I have had the honor of witnessing profound transformation in the way that my clients relate to themselves and others. Why do I love IFS so much?
- IFS recognizes the multiplicity in all of us. It reduces the pressure that so many of us feel when we have feelings, thoughts, or personality traits that seem to be incongruous or inconsistent. IFS gives language to what may seem baffling or confusing in our experiences or ways of being in the world. In recognizing our different parts, we are find freedom from the over-identification with any one aspect of our being.
- IFS fosters self-compassion and mindfulness. It allows us to witness our own experience without getting lost in it.
- IFS is a non-pathologizing model. It doesn’t cast some parts of us as good or bad. In IFS, we say, “All parts welcome.”
- IFS is empowering. The emphasis of the work is on your own capacity to relate to yourself and what is going on in your internal world. As a therapist, I only support and facilitate my clients in building their own capacity to heal.
- IFS allows my clients to let go of the burdens they have been carrying for years and to experience a greater sense of internal balance. IFS has enormous potential to help people to heal from intergenerational or cultural/collective traumas.
- IFS works beautifully in conjunction with the other approaches that I use in my work. For years, I couldn’t understand why some clients benefitted so dramatically from EMDR therapy, while others seemed to get stuck. I have also been integrating IFS with Somatic Experiencing (SE), which as drastically improved my clients’ capacities to engage in trauma healing and recovery work.
Areas of emphasis
- Gender affirmation, trans and/or nonbinary identities
- Eating disorders, food and body-related concerns
- Trauma
- Family building and fertility/reproduction
- Anxiety and stress
- Depression
- Grief and loss
- Attachment and relationship concerns
- Dating and barriers to intimacy
- Compulsive behaviors
- Substance abuse, multiple addictions, sobriety, and recovery
- Significant life transitions
- Diverse sexualities and relationships
- Codependency and co-addiction
- Cultural identity concerns
- Healing from systemic challenges oppresion
