My Approach

I see therapy as a space to slow down and pay closer attention to experience. People often arrive with a sense that something feels stuck or difficult to name. Rather than rushing toward solutions, I’m interested in creating the conditions where what has been pushed aside can be brought into view. Often, that requires working through how past experiences within your individual personal life have come to shape patterns in the present, as well as learning new strategies or “skills” to slow down and observe them.

At the same time, I also strongly believe that personal suffering is shaped not only by individual history but also by the broader social and historical (often intergenerational) contexts in which that suffering unfolds. And I believe that a great deal of the suffering we experience comes from the meanings we assign to it, including the degree to which we believe aspects of our lives are or are not within our control. Maybe that’s why, although I’m not religious, I’m a big fan of Reinhold Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

This shapes my belief that if therapy is intended as a process by which to alleviate suffering, it must function as a place a space to explore where change is possible. And unfortunately, not everything is. What if we could both better understand the constraints in our lives and acknowledge them while investing more time and energy into those areas that are amenable to change? What if we could both learn strategies for say, regulating our nervous systems while also acknowledging elements of our experience that are or were quite literally out of our control? What if we could write new stories about ourselves that take into account this complexity? I believe that in the absence of a radical shift in how we organize society, therapy offers a space to recognize what can be changed and to develop new capacities to tolerate and maybe even accept what we cannot.

So when I sit with a client and I listen for symptoms of distress that are interrupting the flow of one’s life, I do not view them as problems to eliminate. I view them as messages that offer a lens through which to more deeply understand how we have come to respond to events in our lives. Together, we will listen what these responses might be protecting, expressing, or asking for. This stance allows the work to proceed with curiosity rather than judgment.

If you’re interested in therapeutic modalities, my approach is relational and depth-oriented, with attention to the body and to the social worlds we inhabit. I draw from psychoanalytic, humanistic and somatic orientations including attachment-based therapy, emotional-focused therapy for couples, parts work and DBT. I am also trained in EMDR. More important than any modality is how we work together, and what becomes possible within that relationship. While a bit of a nerd, I’m warm and caring, client centered and non-judgmental and like to think I’m occasionally funny:) Together, we will help you unearth all of the strengths you may not have known you already have, honor reality as it is while forging new paths for change.