Services
I believe that I serve my clients best when I bring together a range of approaches validated by research and modalities that are client-centered, somatic, justice, and trauma-informed. I understand that systemic and cultural realities are intimately connected to how we feel internally and they impact our dynamics and relationships with others. I integrate trauma theories, body psychotherapies, expressive arts, neuroscience, attachment theories and cultural approaches in my work
Somatic Psychotherapy
The foundation of my work is rooted in attachment theory and the belief that we all have the capacity to change and transform. Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) is an integrative model of psychotherapy that brings together relational work, experiential techniques, and focuses on the process of change and healing. I bring together experiential practices from AEDP and somatic techniques to first develop safety. When safety is established in the therapeutic dyad the client is supported to explore their inner world.
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We may practice sensory processes to heighten our awareness, validate our experiences, and discover our non-verbal voice using interventions inspired through dance movement therapy (DMT). We may integrate our visceral awareness by way of intentional breathing practices. And we may explore movement initiating from our bones, muscles, connective tissues and organs with the potential to gain increased self-understanding. Moving in this way also stretches our capacity for embodied presence. Embodied presence is evidenced by the client's felt-sense and communication of their needs and desires, practicing mood and nervous system regulation, and fully expressing emotions in the present moment.
A somatic approach can help you become more aware of conscious and unconscious parts of yourself in order to live in your present moment experience. You will learn how to find and feel compassion towards yourself that will support resilience, self-confidence, clarify boundaries, and an increased sense of vitality in your life.
Psychedelic Assisted Therapy (PAT)
Ketamine or Cannabis Assisted Therapy
Anxiety, Depression, PTSD, and addiction symptoms are frequently adaptive responses to childhood experiences. PAT focuses on the root causes of these symptoms rather than suppressing or managing them. In medicine assisted sessions clients have a unique opportunity to cultivate a new relationship to their symptoms through embodied awareness & compassionate support from a trained therapist. Instead of seeing symptoms as problems, we learn to see them as guides.
Psychedelics are powerful tools to access non-ordinary states of consciousness and work with material that may be held below the surface of our ordinary mind (subconscious). I work with ketamine and cannabis which are legally available for medicinal use. When used with the intention in a therapeutic setting, these medicines can give access to deep healing. Since Ketamine is a dissociative expressive medicine, it typically promotes a willingness to process material that could otherwise feel overwhelming. The PAT model that I utilize requires a lower dose of the prescribed medicine, which allows for titration inward and outward with the therapist while tending to the body’s responses. In this way the therapist and client are engaged throughout the 2 hour medicine session.
Please note that I am not a medical prescriber. I will refer you to a provider I work with for Ketamine prescriptions.
Clinical Supervision
I work with graduate students and those working toward their LPC certifications. We use videotaped sessions and model a strong focus on here-and-now interactions characterized by affective resonance and empathy to provide a transformative experience that complements their professional identity development.
What happens in a somatic therapy session?
You come to know yourself in the process of being known by someone else. So we have to build a relationship with each other first. The relationship is the foundation of the work that we’re going to do. If you don’t have a good relationship with the therapist, it’s hard to do the work. What is most important is that you feel you have a trusting relationship with your therapist so you CAN be vulnerable and create a narrative that you haven’t before.
My job as the therapist is to hold a non-judgmental space and be as aware of what’s NOT being said as much as what is.Two personalities come together in a therapeutic relationship; I encourage people to trust their guts when it comes to building those relationships. There’s a discerning process that has to happen.
I work relationally, meaning the relationship we have as a team is the basis of all client work. That’s key to developing a reflective self. It happens through a non-verbal and eventually verbal process. I’m committed to helping people build healthy relationships, and I think that being in a committed relationship helps me do that. I’m wired for commitment!
In attachment theory, we talk about secure attachment and three forms of insecure attachment. Relationship trauma develops from one of those three when someone’s needs weren’t met as a child (abuse, neglect). People create barriers to relationships to protect themselves. Growing in adulthood, some of those protective barriers are still in place and it’s not to your benefit. Therapy helps us dismantle and process these barriers to better understand and adapt your needs relative to cultivating healthy connections with other people.
Some of the ways that we may do that in a session include practicing mindfulness, creativity, and interoception – the sensory perception inside the body that tracks changes in temperature, pain, and exhaustion. It also helps you realize when you feel certain emotions. These emotional reactions may be automatic and/or unconscious. Identifying your somatic markers or somatic signatures helps you begin to understand the root of your current emotions in a healthy way.
When we talk about creativity as a tool, we mean developing the ability to be spontaneous. That might happen through movement or imaginative play . . . we might invite another part of yourself to come out and play, to give that dissociated part of yourself a voice.
Investment
Somatic Psychotherapy Session: $190/55 Minutes
Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapy Session: $380/2 Hours
Payment is due at the time of service. We accept cash, personal checks, Venmo, Credit and HSA Cards. We are out-of-network with all insurance companies. We are happy to provide you with a super-bill to submit to your insurance company.