Understanding Yourself Is Important.
But Sometimes Insight Isn't Enough.
You may already know why you respond the way you do.
You may understand your childhood, recognize your relationship patterns, know your triggers, and even be able to name the beliefs you carry because of what you've experienced.
And still, in the moment, something takes over.
You shut down. You become anxious. You overthink. You accommodate. You disconnect. You take care of everyone else. You react in ways you promised yourself you wouldn't.
This doesn't mean you haven't done enough work.
It means that some of what shapes us lives deeper than conscious understanding.
My approach to therapy is designed to meet you there.
We Begin With Curiosity…
I don't see symptoms simply as problems to eliminate.
Anxiety, perfectionism, people-pleasing, emotional withdrawal, hyper-independence, overfunctioning, or the need to stay in control often developed for a reason.
At some point, they may have helped you feel safe, connected, accepted, or able to manage experiences that felt overwhelming.
Rather than asking only:
How do we make this stop?
I am often interested in another question:
What is this trying to protect?
That shift — from judgment to curiosity — can change the way we relate to ourselves.
Instead of fighting the parts of you that seem anxious, angry, avoidant, needy, controlling, or afraid, we begin to understand them.
And when something no longer has to work so hard to protect you, change becomes possible.
Therapy That Works on More Than One Level
Healing doesn't always happen through talking alone.
Depending on what brings you to therapy and what feels right for you, our work may move between several layers of experience.
Understanding Your Story
We explore the relationships, experiences, family dynamics, beliefs, and patterns that have shaped the way you experience yourself and others.
Understanding matters.
But it is often the beginning of the work rather than the end.
Healing What the Past Still Holds
Sometimes the past isn't simply something we remember.
Its imprint can continue to appear in the present — in relationships, emotional reactions, beliefs about ourselves, or the body's response to situations that feel familiar.
When appropriate, I incorporate trauma-focused approaches such as EMDR and Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT)to help process experiences that may not have fully resolved through insight or conversation alone.
We don't need to force our way into painful experiences.
Trauma work should happen with care, preparation, and respect for your pace.
Working With the Parts of You
Through an Internal Family Systems-informed perspective, we may become curious about the different parts of you that appear in particular situations.
The part that takes care of everyone.
The part that worries.
The part that needs to get everything right.
The part that wants to disappear.
The part that is angry.
The part that learned not to need anyone.
Instead of trying to get rid of these parts, we explore what they have been carrying and what they may still believe they need to protect you from.
Learning to Stay Present With Yourself
Mindfulness is woven throughout much of my work, but not as another thing you need to become "good at."
At its simplest, mindfulness is learning to notice what is happening within you without immediately judging it, fixing it, or running from it.
Over time, this can create something incredibly important:
space between what you feel and what you do next.
That space gives you more choice.
The Body Is Part of the Conversation
Our experiences aren't stored only as stories.
Sometimes we know we're safe and our body remains tense.
We know a relationship is different and still brace for rejection.
We know we don't have to please everyone and still feel uncomfortable saying no.
This is why I pay attention not only to what you think, but also to what you notice emotionally and physically.
Breath, sensation, tension, emotion, impulses, and nervous-system responses can all offer information about what is happening beneath the surface.
You don't need to be particularly connected to your body or experienced with mindfulness to do this work.
We begin wherever you are.
And Sometimes Healing Opens a Larger Question
There is often a point in therapy when something interesting happens.
The original symptoms may become quieter. You understand yourself differently. Old patterns begin to loosen.
And another question emerges:
If I am no longer organizing my life around survival, fear, obligation, or who I thought I needed to be and how do I actually want to live?
This is where my work often expands beyond symptom relief into questions of identity, meaning, purpose, values, and connection.
For some women, spirituality is part of that exploration. For others, it isn't.
There is no belief system you need to bring into therapy.
I simply believe that psychological healing can sometimes open the door to a deeper relationship with yourself and with the life you want to create.
An Integrative Approach
There isn't one modality that can capture the complexity of a human being. My work is relational, depth-oriented, and integrative, drawing from different approaches depending on your needs and where we are in the therapeutic process.
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
IFS helps us understand the different parts of ourselves — including those that protect, worry, overfunction, withdraw, or carry old wounds. Rather than trying to eliminate these parts, we approach them with curiosity and compassion, creating space for greater understanding and inner connection.
Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR)
EMDR can help process experiences that continue to feel unresolved or remain emotionally activating in the present. It allows us to work beyond insight alone, helping painful experiences become less powerful in shaping how you feel and respond today.
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT / Tapping)
EFT combines focused attention with gentle tapping on acupressure points. It can be incorporated into therapy to support emotional regulation and help us work with distressing emotions, beliefs, and experiences.
Mindfulness-Based Therapy
Mindfulness is woven throughout much of my work as a way of becoming more aware of thoughts, emotions, sensations, and patterns without immediately judging or reacting to them. Over time, this awareness can create more space for choice and a different relationship with ourselves.
Attachment & Family Systems
These perspectives help us understand how early relationships, family dynamics, and experiences of connection continue to influence how we relate to ourselves and others. Recognizing these patterns can open the possibility of creating new ways of relating.
Energy Psychology & Transpersonal Psychotherapy
For clients who are interested, these approaches can make room for dimensions of experience that may extend beyond traditional talk therapy including the mind-body connection, intuition, spirituality, meaning, and purpose.
The modality is never the goal.
The goal is helping you understand yourself more deeply, heal what continues to shape your present, and experience greater freedom to live as yourself.
