I draw from an eclectic blend of approaches tailored to each client's unique needs and goals. Some of my favorite techniques include the empty chair, somatic experiencing, exploring and reprocessing narratives, and examining your stories from a strengths-based lens. I love to ask: What helped?
A large piece of my work is reframing, seeing how you used coping skills that were adaptive in the short term, but no longer serve you. My overarching goal is to work myself out of being your therapist by providing you with a realistic roadmap to take with you out of the therapy room to feel confident in your emotions and well-being.
Your window of tolerance is the space where your nervous system feels regulated and at home. You can get curious, consider, and question. You feel safe and in control. You can let in love, joy, peace, and rationality. It's the space I aim to create in our relationship together, where you can use me as a safe attachment to explore on a deeper level.
Somatic experiencing resolves physical symptoms of trauma by releasing stored energy. It is used to calm an overactive nervous system or process a specific overwhelming event. This looks creative, it might be checking body cues seated, stretching, or physically moving our bodies through titration and pendulation.
The empty chair is a powerful experiential technique we use within your narrative to externalize stuck points or unresolved feelings. When the time comes, I'll guide you through it. The premise is role-playing with yourself, using an empty chair to represent the externalized piece, as a way to gain insight, clarity, and confidence.
Starting therapy can feel like a big step, especially if you've never done it before. Here's what to expect, so you can walk in (or log on) knowing what's ahead.
Once we schedule, you'll receive an invitation to our secure client portal. There you'll complete a few intake forms, including some background information and consent paperwork.
Take your time with these and share what feels comfortable. We'll fill in the rest together.
We'll start with the practical pieces: reviewing your paperwork, walking through informed consent, and talking about what confidentiality means in our work, including its few limits.
Then the time is yours. I'll invite you to share what brought you in and a bit of your story, at whatever pace feels right. You don't need to tell me everything in one hour, and you never have to share something you're not ready to.
Together, we'll begin naming what you're hoping for: what you'd like to feel, change, or understand through our work. Your goals can be big or small, clear or still forming. They give us a starting point, and they can shift as we go.
It's common to feel nervous beforehand, and tired, relieved, or a little tender afterward. All of it is welcome. If you can, give yourself some gentle space after we meet.
Before we close, we'll talk about the rhythm of sessions that makes sense for you and plan our next time together.