My Approach

Understanding how you got here. Making room for what comes next.

My approach is integrative, trauma-informed, and grounded in curiosity about how we become who we are. Together, we explore earlier experiences, present-day relationships, emotions, and the patterns that keep showing up—even when you’ve asked them, quite politely, to stop.

I bring warmth, directness, humor, and psychoeducation into our work. We make room for understanding, practical change, and the feelings that don’t immediately cooperate with either.

Your well-being deserves attention in its own right. You don’t have to turn therapy into another performance goal.

Curiosity about the pattern and its purpose.

Overthinking, staying busy, withdrawing, keeping the peace, or taking responsibility for everyone may have helped you get through something. Before asking you to change a response, I want to understand what it has been doing for you.

We explore the strengths, coping strategies, and defenses you’ve developed, including what still supports you and what has become exhausting or limiting.

Language for what you’ve been experiencing.

I bring psychoeducation into our conversations because understanding a response can offer perspective—and a little less self-blame.

We might connect a familiar relationship dynamic with attachment, notice a stress response as it happens, or explore why knowing what you need hasn’t made asking for it easy. There’s room to learn without making therapy another course you need to ace.

As the seventh of ten children, I learned early that people can share a home and have very different experiences. Nearly three decades working with founders and creative companies deepened that understanding: a shared workplace doesn’t mean a shared reality, either.

My graduate training at Northwestern emphasized multiculturalism and social justice. I bring that perspective alongside my professional and lived experience, with curiosity about your particular story. Your family, culture, identities, opportunities, and circumstances belong in the conversation.

What I bring into the room

An understanding of people within their worlds.

Attention to what you feel, including in your body.

Sometimes you can explain an experience clearly and still feel your chest tighten when something reminds you of it.

Alongside conversation, we may use grounding, somatic practices, or EMDR, depending on your needs and readiness. We pay attention to what helps you stay present, what feels overwhelming, and when slowing down is the work.

Room for your whole life.

My background gives me an understanding of leadership, workplace dynamics, and the pressure of being responsible. Our conversations also make room for relationships, identity, trauma, addiction, grief, loss, and change.

And for joy. Pleasure. Connection. Figuring out what you actually want, beyond becoming exceptionally good at getting through the day.

You’re still becoming.

Experiences of trust, independence, identity, connection, and purpose shape how we relate to ourselves and others. Those themes begin early and can return throughout our lives.

Drawing on Erik Erikson’s eight psychosocial stages, we explore what you learned, how you adapted, and how those experiences may show up now. The stages offer a lens rather than a fixed timetable, with room for your culture, circumstances, and individual path.

Trust · Autonomy · Initiative · Competence · Identity · Intimacy · Contribution · Reflection

What did life teach you about who you had to be? What would you like more choice about now?

Explore the Stages:

  • Stage 1: Infancy (Birth–1 year)

    Crisis: Trust vs. Mistrust
    Virture: Hope
    *
    Our earliest relationships introduce us to safety, care, and whether others will respond to our needs.

    Can you let someone show up for you without preparing to be disappointed?

  • Stage 2: Toddler (Ages 1–3)

    Crisis: Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt
    Virtue: Will
    * *
    As we begin doing things ourselves, we explore independence, choice, and what happens when we make mistakes.

    Are you making your own choices, or asking for permission without realizing it?

  • Stage 3: Preschool (Ages 3–6)

    Crisis: Initiative vs. Guilt
    Virtue: Purpose
    * * *
    We begin initiating activities, expressing ideas, and discovering how others respond to our curiosity.

    What would you begin if wanting something didn’t make you feel guilty?

  • Stage 4: School (Ages 6–12)

    Crisis: Industry vs. Inferiority
    Virtue: Purpose
    * * * *
    Learning, practicing, and receiving feedback help shape our sense of competence.

    Who are you when you’re not proving you’re good at something?

  • Stage 5: Adolescence (Ages 12–18)

    Crisis: Identity vs. Role Confusion
    Virtue: Fidelity
    * * * * *
    We explore who we are, what we believe, and where we belong. L

    How much of your life feels like you—and how much feels like who you learned to be?

  • Stage 6: Early Adulthood (Ages 18–40)

    Crisis: Intimacy vs. Isolation
    Virtue: Love
    * * * * * *
    We explore how to build meaningful relationships while maintaining a sense of self.

    Do people know you, or just know they can count on you?

  • Stage 7: Middle Adulthood (Ages 40–65)

    Crisis: Generativity vs. Stagnation
    Virtue: Care
    * * * * * * *
    Our attention may turn toward contribution, care, and what we want to help grow.

    What are you giving your energy to, and is it what you want to help grow?

  • Stage 8: Late Adulthood (Ages 65+)

    Crisis: Integrity vs. Despair
    Virtue: Wisdom
    * * * * * * * *
    We reflect on our lives, making meaning of our choices, relationships, accomplishments, and regrets.

    If your life stopped being a list of accomplishments, what would make it feel like a life you’re glad you lived?

How we make sense of it, together.

The approaches behind our work

You bring expertise in your own life. I bring clinical perspectives, curiosity, and a collaborative relationship. Together, we consider what fits your needs, preferences, and goals.

The following descriptions can appear in dropdowns.

Integrative Therapy

You’re a whole person whose needs may call for different approaches. I draw from several therapeutic frameworks, connecting reflection with practical tools and adapting our work as your needs evolve.

Person-Centered Therapy

Our relationship is collaborative, with your needs, values, and pace guiding the work. I offer empathy, honesty, and space to feel heard without having to perform or arrive with everything figured out.

A Multicultural Lens

Your experiences exist within family, culture, race, gender, sexuality, ability, community, and opportunity. We explore how identity, belonging, discrimination, and systems of power shape your life—and what meaningful care looks like to you.

A Trauma-Informed Approach

What happened to you matters, and so does how you adapted. Our work emphasizes choice, collaboration, and attention to your sense of safety, with time to develop support and coping skills before approaching painful experiences.

Psychodynamic Therapy

We explore how earlier experiences and relationships may influence present-day feelings, expectations, and ways of relating, sometimes outside your awareness. Recognizing those connections can create more choice in how you respond.

Narrative Therapy

The stories you carry about yourself can shape what you believe is possible. We explore where those stories came from, whose expectations they reflect, and whether they leave room for who you are becoming.

Somatic Practices

We pay attention to bodily sensations, breathing, tension, and other signs of stress. Grounding and body awareness offer ways to notice your responses and explore what helps you feel more present.

EMDR Therapy

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is a structured approach to processing distressing memories and associated beliefs and responses. Following assessment and preparation, it uses bilateral stimulation, such as guided eye movements, while attending to aspects of an experience.

Explore EMDR →

Solution-Focused Therapy

Alongside what’s difficult, we explore your strengths, what’s already helping, and times when a problem feels less overwhelming. Together, we identify practical steps toward the changes you want. Small shifts count.

Understanding your patterns

A little more language. A little less self-blame.

Psychoeducation connects therapeutic concepts with everyday experience. We use it to understand your responses, recognize options, and practice what feels useful in your life.

These topics can also appear in dropdowns.

Stress Responses

Under pressure, you may notice an urge to fight back, get away, shut down, or appease others. We explore when these protective responses appear, what brings them on, and what helps you respond with greater awareness.

The Window of Tolerance

The window of tolerance describes a range in which you can experience emotions while remaining able to think, connect, and respond flexibly. We notice signs of becoming highly activated or shut down and explore ways to return to a more manageable state.

Emotional Regulation

Regulation includes noticing, understanding, and responding to emotions, as well as recovering after difficult moments. We practice making room for feelings while developing ways to manage their intensity and communicate what you need.

Coping Strategies & Defenses

Coping strategies and defenses help us manage distress; some are deliberate, while others happen with little awareness. We explore their protective purpose, their costs, and the choices available to you now.

Adaptive & Maladaptive Patterns

A response can help in one situation and create difficulties in another. We consider patterns in context: what helped you cope then, what supports you now, and where you might need something different.

Attachment & Relationships

Attachment offers a way to explore expectations around closeness, care, trust, and separation. We look at how these expectations appear across your relationships, with room for patterns to shift through awareness and new experiences.

The Effects of Trauma

Overwhelming experiences can influence emotions, beliefs, bodily responses, and relationships long after an event has passed. We explore their impact at your pace while strengthening present-day support and choice.

Habits & Addiction

We explore what a behavior offers—relief, pleasure, escape, connection—and what it may be costing you. Together, we consider its impact and the support you need for the changes you want to make.

Stages of Change

Wanting change and feeling ready for it don’t always arrive together. We explore readiness, ambivalence, action, maintenance, and setbacks, using your experience to understand what support and next steps may help.

It’s an old pattern.
It’s a new possibility.
It’s who you had to be.
It’s choosing who you become.

What would you like to understand?
What would you like to feel different?

You don’t have to wait until everything feels unmanageable. We can begin with what’s bringing you here, what you’re carrying, and what you need.

Let’s Connect →