How I Work

 Therapy is not one-size-fits-all. Different people—and sometimes different moments in the same person’s life—may call for different ways of working.

My approach is integrative and trauma-informed. I draw from a range of evidence-based and evidence-informed approaches while paying attention to your history, current needs, goals, strengths, preferences, and readiness for the work.

Sometimes therapy focuses more on thoughts, beliefs, patterns, and meaning. At other times, it may involve emotions, relationships, the nervous system, the body, different parts of the self, or experiences that continue to feel unresolved. We work collaboratively to determine what is most useful rather than requiring you to fit a particular treatment model.

Therapy can work through different pathways. Some approaches begin more with thought, language, understanding, and meaning-making. These are often described as top-down approaches.

Other approaches pay closer attention to what happens through the nervous system and body, including sensation, movement, emotion, physiological activation, shutdown, and automatic protective responses. These are often described as bottom-up approaches.

These are not rigid categories, and most therapy includes some degree of both. A person may intellectually understand that they are safe while their body continues to respond as though danger is present. At other times, increasing insight, developing new skills, or changing a pattern of behavior can create meaningful change.

An integrative approach allows us to work through more than one pathway, depending on what is most helpful for you.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR, is a structured psychotherapy approach developed to help people process experiences that continue to feel unresolved or easily activated.

Sometimes an experience is over, but aspects of it remain linked to strong emotions, beliefs, body sensations, or automatic protective responses.  EMDR is designed to help people reprocess distressing experiences so that memories, emotions, beliefs, and body responses connected to them may become less activating and feel more connected to the past rather than the present. 

EMDR does not require immediately confronting the most distressing material. Preparation, resourcing, pacing, and attention to your capacity to remain present are important parts of the work.

I am an EMDRIA Certified EMDR Therapist.

 Trauma and chronic stress are not experienced only through thoughts and memories. They can also show up through patterns of tension, posture, movement, activation, numbness, shutdown, vigilance, or automatic defensive responses.

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy is a body-oriented approach that brings mindful attention to these experiences while remaining grounded in the present. We may notice what is happening in the body, explore patterns that developed in response to earlier experiences, and gently experiment with new experiences of movement, agency, regulation, boundaries, and choice.

The goal is not to force the body to change or to relive an experience. Instead, the body becomes another source of information that can be included in therapy.

I have completed Level I training in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy for the treatment of trauma.

Sometimes different aspects of us seem to want very different things. One part may want closeness while another pulls away. One may work hard to stay in control, while another feels frightened, overwhelmed, angry, numb, or exhausted.

Parts-oriented therapy offers a way of understanding these internal responses as adaptations rather than signs that something is wrong with you. My approach draws from Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Janina Fisher’s Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST), while also integrating attachment and body-based perspectives.

We may work to notice when a particular part or state has taken over, understand what it is trying to accomplish or protect, and develop greater capacity to respond from a more grounded and compassionate place.

The goal is not to get rid of protective responses. Many developed for important reasons. Over time, therapy can help create enough safety, flexibility, and internal connection that those responses no longer need to work quite so hard.

Therapy often includes helping you understand what is happening in your nervous system and building the capacity to stay present with difficult experiences without becoming overwhelmed.

We may use psychoeducation and practical tools related to the window of tolerance, activation and shutdown, grounding, orienting, dual attention, and other ways of increasing regulation and present-moment awareness.

These skills are not simply “coping techniques.” They can help create enough stability and flexibility for deeper therapeutic work to become more manageable and effective.

The goal is to expand your ability to notice what is happening, remain connected to the present, and have more choice in how you respond.

Our earliest relationships help shape what we learn about safety, closeness, vulnerability, conflict, boundaries, and whether other people are likely to respond when we need them.

Those patterns can continue to influence relationships long after the original circumstances have changed. In therapy, we may explore what happens when you need support, fear disappointing someone, anticipate rejection, pull away, over-accommodate, struggle to trust, or become highly activated when connection feels uncertain.

Attachment-informed and relational therapy does not reduce people to an attachment label. Instead, it helps us understand patterns in context and explore new experiences of connection, boundaries, choice, and repair.

The therapeutic relationship itself can also become part of the work. Collaboration, honesty, misunderstanding, rupture, and repair can all offer opportunities to notice old expectations and develop new relational experiences.