My Approach
My style is relational, somatic, liberation-oriented and trauma-informed. I believe that there is already a brilliant inner wisdom within each of us---my goal is then to provide your psyche with attentive loving-kindness, gentle guidance, and a safe container so that your healing may unfold. I am comfortable holding the messy and hard parts of life and relationships with you, as well as sitting in reverence and celebrating the magic of it all. I sometimes provide psychoeducation and offer tools, resources, and information about the psychology and neuroscience that underlie your healing processes. ​​I draw on several modalities such as the Hakomi Method, Relational Somatic Healing, Parts Work (e.g., Internal Family Systems, IFS), Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP), and Psychedelic Somatic Interactional Psychotherapy (PSIP), to structure my sessions.
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Somatic/Body-Centered
From a somatics lens, the body and psyche are not separate but rather two facets of a single, unified self. The body stores felt-sense memories and core beliefs are expressed through it. Therefore, by paying attention to what the body is saying, we can access and recover deep aspects of our experiences that cannot be accessed through talk alone. Tuning into what is happening in the body through mindfulness is also a helpful way to ground in what is present, which allows for therapy to become experiential and focused on the immediate experience of the client. This, in turn, makes for a deeper and more efficient access route to core material, where healing and transformation can occur. With practice, I guide my clients to develop compassionate awareness about their somatic experience and integrate the wisdom of their body with the intelligence of their mind; this may look like slowing down and turning inward to become mindful of the breath, postures, gestures, images, vocal qualities, emotions, and sensations that surface while speaking.
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Relational
The relationship between the therapist and the client can serve as a model for how a client "does" relationship more broadly. Working relationally means that we bring attention to the "here-and-now" therapist-client relationship, as a way to support and transform unhelpful relationship templates that were set in childhood and ultimately address developmental and attachment-based trauma. Drawing on the Relational Somatic Healing method and on attachment theory, we work slowly (as adrienne maree brown says, "at the speed of trust") to cultivate a felt-sense of safety, consent, boundaries, and clear communication in the therapy relationship and beyond.
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Anti-Oppressive
My work is rooted in the understanding that privilege, power, and structural and systemic injustice are interwoven into our life experiences and I believe part of our work together is interrupting these cycles of oppression by becoming aware of their impacts and healing from them. I am committed to a practice that is welcoming to people of color, neurodiverse and disabled folks, queer, trans, and gender nonconforming folks, and folks of all body sizes. I also work with folks who benefit from hierarchical systems to support the process of compassionately acknowledging and unpacking privilege to ultimately align with a liberatory vision for all.
