My Approach to Healing
My approach is grounded in a simple intention: to help you understand your inner world so you can make peace with the past, engage more fully in the present, and move forward with purpose. I work with compassion, curiosity, and deep respect for your lived experience. Clients often describe my style as warm, caring, and gently directive. Some like to say that sessions feel like “more than an expensive coffee date.”
While talking about your experiences can be helpful, I believe that true change often comes from engaging with what’s happening inside you in the present moment. I frequently incorporate experiential work like interactive, body-based, and expressive techniques that help you connect with your emotions and inner experiences in the present moment. I work from a trauma-informed, culturally humble stance, and take a non-pathologizing approach, which means I don’t see your reactions or coping strategies as signs of something “wrong” with you, but as understandable responses to what you’ve been through. My goal is to create a space that feels safe, supportive, and respectful of all identities and experiences.
Foundations of my Practice
At the heart of my work is Internal Family Systems (IFS), an experiential, non-pathologizing approach that fosters self-awareness, compassion, and a deeper understanding of your inner world.
Many clients who have experienced traditional talk therapy find that IFS offers clarity and lasting change. To support and expand this work I draw from a variety of complementary methods, creating a framework tailored to each person’s unique healing journey. For example, in working with loss or a major life transition, we may bring in an existential focus, or for clients hoping to reduce chronic pain, I will supplement with Pain Reprocessing Therapy. This flexible approach responds to what you bring into the therapy space, allowing for growth and transformation that feels meaningful and supportive. I integrate elements of:
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IFS is a transformative, experiential approach often called "parts work." It views the mind as made up of multiple parts, and guides you to befriend, appreciate, and relate compassionately to these different parts. Healing emerges as clients learn to more reliably access the compassionate, calm and courageous core Self we all have within. Then, burdens can be released from protective parts that hold rigid roles and from exiled part that distress emotions or beliefs. Internal Family Systems (IFS) is an evidence-based therapy for a range of mental health concerns, including anxiety, depression, trauma, PTSD, and eating disorders. It is also used for relationship difficulties, substance use, and improving general well-being and self-compassion. Additionally, it has shown benefits for managing the symptoms of physical conditions like rheumatoid arthritis. By cultivating self-leadership, the inner system can achieve greater balance, trust, and harmony.
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Mindfulness-based therapies draw on the power of paying deliberate attention to the present moment with openness and curiosity. By learning to intentionally direct our attention to the here and now and responding without judgement, we can disengage from unhelpful thinking patterns, change our relationship to difficult thoughts, sensations and feelings and build self-compassion. By observing mindfully, allowing what we notice, and treating it with warmth, we create room to choose how to respond rather than react automatically. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is a mindfulness-based therapy that I often draw on that aims to build psychological flexibility by emphasizing being present, opening up and allowing difficult experiences, and doing what matters in the moment.
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Existential therapy focuses on exploring and understanding the fundamental nature and meaning of human existence. We dip into it when we grapple with big themes like meaning and purpose, balancing freedom and responsibility and engaging with anxiety-provoking experiences like loneliness and death. Ultimately the goal is to live a more authentic life and make choices that align with your values rather than fear. These types of explorations are often central during life transitions.
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Polyvagal Theory explains how the nervous system responds to stress, danger, or safety and shapes our emotions and behavior. It highlights the vagus nerve’s role in signaling safety and connection, versus fight-or-flight or shutdown. In therapy, a polyvagal-informed approach uses awareness of our bodily state to create safety and social connection. This often includes incorporating body-based practices—tracking sensations, breathing techniques, and using voice and movement—to help regulate the nervous system and build resilience.
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Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) is an evidence-based, mind-body treatment that helps individuals reduce or eliminate chronic pain by retraining their brain to interpret pain signals as non-threatening. It is based on the understanding that in certain chronic pain conditions, pain persists not because of ongoing tissue damage but due to a sensitized nervous system that continues to signal danger even when the body is physically safe. The approach involves learning how pain works, bringing non-judgemental awareness and messages of safety to the pain when at low-medium levels, and emotional processing to enhance safety and interrupt the pain-fear cycle.
What to Expect When You Work With Me
In our first couple of sessions, I listen to what brings you to therapy and ask about your history, goals, and the changes you’re hoping for. This foundation helps us build clarity and a shared understanding of what matters most to you. As we continue, sessions may start with you describing a current issue or topic you’d like to explore. From there, we may shift from storytelling and analyzing patterns into experiential work.
This means slowing down and noticing the sensations, emotions, thoughts, and memories that are present in the moment, and engaging with them directly rather than only talking about them. For example, we might zoom in on a body cue, like tight shoulders or a persistent feeling of dread, and explore it in depth. I will help you hear what these parts of your experience may be trying to communicate and in discovering the positive intentions behind them. Techniques like mindfulness, self-compassion practices, movement, guided imagery, drawing, journaling, and supportive self-talk may be used to help you get to know these inner parts and reshape your relationship with them.
As we untangle the parts of your experience, you will begin to access the core wisdom we all have inside. Over time, many notice increased spaciousness, insight, self-awareness, and a sense of inner harmony that supports lasting change. Later sessions may include values work, meaning-making, and practical skills to sustain the shifts that are emerging.
Every person’s journey is unique, and I will always work with you in a way that feels right and supportive for your needs.
Supporting Your Unique Journey
Whatever challenges you face in the external world, my goal is to help you draw on your own ability to encounter them with intention, courage, and clarity. You are already enough, exactly as you are, and that truth is the foundation for our work together. Let’s begin.