I offer therapy to individuals, families, and teens. I help cultivate a relationship between the body and mind in the present as you explore life experiences. We uncover how response systems were developed to keep you safe, surviving and maybe even thriving at one point or other. Through interpersonal therapeutic conversation, using theory and tools developed over decades of training, and my attentiveness to your unique response system, we co-create tools and strategies that become the structure to help you cultivate a sense of Self beyond your response systems. The resources we create together include:

• Identifying relationship attachment patterns that are/have been hurtful and imagining what you might have needed instead using attachment and human development concepts to rewrite your “shoulds” into very understandable needs.

• Learning to work with your body’s responses like tension or the ways you unconsciously care for yourself (think about if you clench your jaw or reach for your neck/shoulder when you feel uncomfortable or exposed, sad or anxious).

• Using imagery and sensory experiences from nature that are unique to your life experience (like walking through a redwood forest or listening to the sound of rain on the roof).

I help you move from having a dissociative/automatic relationship with experiences to having more of a conscious observer relationship. Entirely different, full of feelings and connections, but with equanimity or neutrality. Rather than doing whatever it takes to distance one’s self from feelings, thoughts, sensations that produce shame, distress, despair, we make room for those feelings with care and compassion.

Once you feel some sense of relief and connection to these elements, then we together, through conversation, awareness, contemplation, attention to how your body responds and lots of supports like pillows, tea, breathing, laughing, crying, comfort, privacy, and respect, lean into the edges of your hardest pains, the betrayals, hurts, regrets, sunken desires, missed connections, neglect, misery (some or all of these may apply). We lean in with great reverence for your capacity to tolerate the distress of remembering. I generate consent and reflection throughout, attending to your whole felt experience so we don’t bypass important signals of need for safety.

Thoughtful, collaborative, compassionate, client-centered therapy for people dealing with:

• physical representations of stress, complex trauma or sadness

• developmental milestones/adjustments to new life situations

• anxiety and depression

• grief and loss

• recovery from traumatic event or illness

• family dynamics after trauma or loss

I utilize the research being done to understand how the nervous system impacts our responses and our choices. Whether it’s early developmental difficulties or the current and ever challenging life circumstances of the times we are living in, our nervous system is adapting to support us its very best. I use a mindfulness approach to understanding and being in relationship with your nervous system through talk, self awareness, movement and connection. My hope is that we don’t have to feel stuck in our traumas, our stories or our challenges. We can learn to have a relationship with our physiology that is supportive and whole, grounded and strong. Healing can happen here, deepening and improving the quality of your present life and relationships.

Collaborative Somatic Experience

In my experience over the years, it’s become clear that people are in need of collaboration, not just to be listened to. Not only to receive empathy. It’s been the integration of my work as a teacher, mediator, therapist, and as a person who also is on my own healing journey that has enabled me to see the power and connection available in collaborative therapy. Particularly for anyone who has felt alone or abandoned or traumatized in their human development, feeling not just seen but truly engaged with is, in itself, healing. It’s empowering when trauma-informed care winds up helping you feel like you are in command of your life without being alone or 100% responsible for it.

Experiences that are joyful and ease filled are an important part of my therapy offering. I hope that as you learn to connect through laughter, tears, shared interests, sharing ideas, you will feel inspired to engage in life with more equanimity and hope.