Services and Areas of Expertise
Facing challenges like anxiety, depression, stress, or other emotional hurdles can often feel isolating, overwhelming, and difficult to navigate on your own. These struggles can affect many aspects of your life—how you think, feel, behave, and interact with others. Individual therapy offers a safe, confidential space where you can explore these challenges in depth and gain a better understanding of how they impact your life.
We will work together to address your specific concerns. For example, if you're struggling with anxiety, we can focus on learning strategies to manage overwhelming thoughts and emotions with evidence-based approaches to build distress tolerance, mindfulness, and emotional regulation skills. If depression is affecting your day-to-day functioning, we can work to identify and reframe negative thought patterns, empowering you to regain control over how you see yourself and the world around you. We may also work on developing healthier coping strategies, whether that means finding ways to handle stress more effectively, improving your ability to manage difficult emotions, or learning to navigate life’s challenges with a greater sense of resilience. Therapy can give you the tools to shift unhealthy patterns, improve your relationships, and ultimately move forward with greater clarity, strength, and confidence. Throughout our work together, the goal is to create a space where you can explore your thoughts and feelings without judgment, develop effective tools to manage life’s challenges, and ultimately create lasting change in your life.
Trauma Recovery
Healing from trauma, whether it’s from a specific event or ongoing stress, is a deeply personal process that affects many aspects of life. Trauma doesn’t just impact how we feel emotionally—it can shape our thoughts, behaviors, relationships, and even our physical well-being. While recovery from trauma isn’t always a straight path, it’s absolutely possible with the right support and tools. Trauma can affect relationships, making it harder to trust or communicate openly. For example, if you've experienced interpersonal trauma, you might find it challenging to feel safe in relationships, even with people who care for you. You may also notice difficulty regulating emotions, which can lead to feelings of anxiety, irritability, or numbness, all of which can affect your daily life. Trauma can even impact your work or school performance, with struggles like concentration difficulties or low motivation. Physically, trauma often shows up in the form of chronic tension, sleep problems, or unexplained pain. Sometimes, people with unresolved trauma may rely on unhealthy coping mechanisms like substance use or self-harm to manage the emotional toll. In our sessions, we can use effective approaches like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and CPT (Cognitive Processing Therapy) to help you process and reframe your traumatic experiences. Both of these therapies are evidence-based methods for reducing the emotional impact of trauma and helping people move forward. These tools will help you explore and make sense of the experiences that have shaped you, giving you the space to heal without them holding you back. Our goal is to create a safe, supportive space where you can truly heal at your own pace. Over time, you can learn to integrate your past in a way that no longer disrupts your life, allowing you to develop healthier coping strategies, build emotional resilience, and feel more at ease. Together, we will work toward a future where you can embrace life with a renewed sense of peace, strength, and clarity.
LGBTQ+ Services
Navigating gender identity or sexual orientation can be a deeply personal and sometimes challenging experience. Therapy offers a supportive, non-judgmental space where you can explore and affirm your authentic self. Whether you are questioning your identity, facing difficulties related to self-acceptance, or dealing with stressors from discrimination or social stigma, therapy can help you process these challenges in a healthy, constructive way. In therapy, we will work collaboratively to help you build a strong sense of self, develop resilience to external pressures, and address the unique challenges that may arise from societal or familial expectations. This may include helping you explore your gender identity, work through concerns related to sexuality, or navigate the coming-out process. I also provide guidance for individuals seeking gender-affirming care, offering support in decision-making regarding transition, social support, and navigating challenges with family or community. Additionally, therapy can help you cope with the emotional toll of discrimination, micro and macro aggressions, or internalized homophobia, which can affect your mental and emotional well-being. By addressing these issues and developing healthy coping mechanisms, you can create a sense of empowerment and self-worth that is aligned with your identity. My goal is to provide a safe, affirming, and empathetic space where you can explore your feelings, understand your identity more clearly, and ultimately navigate the world as your most authentic self.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
EMDR is an evidence-based psychotherapy designed to help individuals heal from the lasting effects of trauma and distressing life experiences. Developed by Dr. Francine Shapiro, EMDR targets maladaptive memories and negative beliefs that contribute to emotional and psychological difficulties. It uses bilateral stimulation (typically through guided eye movements) to help facilitate the brain’s natural healing process, allowing you to process traumatic memories in a more adaptive way. In EMDR therapy, we’ll identify specific memories, beliefs, or experiences that continue to affect your current well-being. Using a structured eight-phase approach, we work together to reprocess these memories, reducing their emotional charge and transforming negative beliefs into more positive, adaptive ones. The goal is to help you integrate distressing memories in a way that decreases their emotional intensity, ultimately allowing you to move forward with increased emotional resilience and healthier coping mechanisms.
How EMDR Differs from Traditional Talk Therapy
Unlike traditional talk therapy, which often focuses on discussing and processing thoughts and emotions around a traumatic event, EMDR directly targets the emotional and cognitive components of distressing memories. Traditional talk therapy relies heavily on verbal processing and the client's ability to reflect on their experiences. While this can be helpful, EMDR goes deeper by using bilateral stimulation to activate the brain’s natural ability to reprocess memories. This can result in faster and more profound healing, especially for trauma-related symptoms such as PTSD, anxiety, and depression. In EMDR, the focus is not only on understanding your past but also on reprocessing the memories that are contributing to your current emotional state. While talk therapy can help with insight and coping strategies, EMDR directly addresses the root causes of distress, offering a unique path to healing.
Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)
I provide therapy for individuals experiencing or recovering from intimate partner violence (IPV). Whether you are in an abusive relationship or healing from one, therapy can offer a safe space to process your experiences, rebuild self-worth, and develop strategies for safety, empowerment, and healing. We use trauma-informed approaches to help you navigate the emotional, psychological, and physical effects of IPV and create a path forward toward recovery.