I approach therapy from a client-centered perspective.

This means that we will work together in our sessions to figure out how best to approach the therapeutic process together, in a way that meets you where you are at, feels safe and encouraging, and allows me to most effectively support your healing, growth, and other therapeutic goals you may have. This also means that as we continue working together, we will regularly check in to see how the therapeutic process is going for you.

I approach therapy holistically.

Holism recognizes that parts of something are interconnected, and that the best way to fully understand something is to consider all these parts and how they impact the whole.

This means that I take many things into account in our therapy sessions, including:

1)Your lived experience (the context in which you grew up, have lived and currently live)

2) Your social location (the intersecting identities you live with, including those which offer you privilige, and those which subject you to systemic oppression and marginalization)

3) Political economy, social systems (the impacts of social dominant discourse, state-backed media/propaganda, colonialism, capitalism, neoliberalism, laws and legal systems, political violence, war, genocide, land extraction/exploitation, history, etc.).

This also means that I will acknowledge my own social location when/if relevant in our sessions. I am happy to offer referrals to other supports, organizations, and individuals who share identities with you that I may not, as needed.

I integrate a few therapeutic modalities in my practice.

These modalities inform, but do not dictate, how I approach therapy. Depending on your unique therapy goals and needs, I may use some, all, or none of these.

  1. Narrative Therapy: Approaching/understanding life as stories we experience, interpret, process, and can re-write. Developed by Michael White & David Epston.

  2. Internal Family Systems (IFS): Understanding ourselves as a complex system of “parts”. These parts seek to protect us and inform how we see the world, ourselves, others, and relationships. “Parts” can develop in a myriad of ways, and ultimately, there are “no bad parts”. IFS seeks to help us understand the needs and goals of these parts, heal wounded parts, and achive harmony with all the “parts” of our whole, “true” self. Developed by Richard C. Schwartz.

  3. Somatic Therapy: Recognizing that the mind is part of the body, this modality addresses how trauma is experienced in the body, held in the body, and can disturb/break body-brain connection (or “interoception” - our awareness of our bodies). Somatic therapy seeks to reconnect this body-brain connection, increasing self-awareness and self-regulation. This modality recognizes the polyvagal theory (Porges).

For more information, please email me or book a free, 15-minute consultation.