Introduction
Life can be difficult, and we all get stuck sometimes. If you can find a way to step into rather than away from these painful experiences, the most difficult challenges you face can transform you and open your heart. This way of moving toward your pain and vulnerability can bring deep wisdom and allow you to live more wholeheartedly in your self, your relationships, and your life. But none of us can do it alone.
I work with individuals and couples using EMDR along with emotion-focused and somatic techniques to help them move through painful, feared, or traumatic experiences and move into more calm, connected ways of being.
I am very comfortable working with people for either short-term or long-term therapy. Typically our sessions happen weekly, although at times we meet more frequently or less, depending on the depth of the work or a person's need or resources.
Individual Psychotherapy
I have helped many individuals face difficult and traumatic moments in their lives and open up to the growth, healing, and transformation that is possible for all of us. I believe that healing happens when we find words where before there were none, when we find hope in places within ourselves we had long ago forsaken, when we allow compassion and connection to touch us when we are feeling most alone and unseen.
I sit with people to help them appreciate where they are in their story and what they are called to do next in relation to both their inner and outer worlds. At any given moment, we decide together how to proceed. Sometimes EMDR is helpful to tap into the body's own healing process. Other times, traditional psychotherapy is helpful to increase self-reflection, to allow for the "being with" presence that brings recognition and soothing, and to bring increasing integration of one's self and narrative. I often move back and forth between EMDR and traditional ways of working as the therapy progresses.
Sometimes it can be helpful to add EMDR as an adjunctive therapy that happens alongside work with another therapist. As an adjunctive therapist, I work closely with the primary therapist to support the client's growth and healing. Typically, clients are referred to me who have a particular memory or set of memories amenable to the EMDR work. This work tends to be time-limited and clearly focused on the goal of healing and bringing closure to these particular experiences.
Couple Psychotherapy
Similar to the development of the individual through the lifespan, there is a developmental course for our intimate relationships. While the initially ecstatic and exciting beginning to an intimate relationship can be wonderful, these experiences inevitably give way to more difficult experiences of doubt and conflict at times. We are mirrors to one another, and there are always times that we do not like what we see of ourselves in another's eyes. There is shame, fear, and vulnerability that keeps us from looking in this relational mirror, and therefore many couples instead grow apart. I help people to find the safety and courage it takes to be able to look inward in each other's presence. They can come to see their conflicts and troubles as experiences of mutual vulnerability and self-protection from which they can heal and grow.
It also takes work and steady intention to nurture your intimate relationships regardless of the particular vulnerabilities and conflicts you each bring. Through the stresses and uncertainties of adult life, many couples do not maintain an actively loving effort toward one another, which ends up leaving the relationship neglected and vulnerable. I work with couples to support the nurturance and feeding of their intimate relationship with each other. This resourcing work is essential. It is surprisingly empowering and reassuring when couples are able to rediscover their loving intention with one another, especially in the context of the issues that brought them into therapy.
When a couple is in crisis, these are often times when one or both partners have outgrown or moved away from the explicit and implicit choices they originally established together. To navigate these inevitably life-altering times, it requires one or both partners to find the courage to speak difficult but undeniable truths. My intention in working with a couple in this phase of their relationship is to help them to create a safe space for this honesty, to stay with the emergence and detoxification of these truths, and to rework the relationship in alignment with their evolving selves. Sometimes the question of whether the relationship can continue emerges at these times for one or both partners. I do strongly value honoring the commitment the couple has made to each other whenever possible, especially when children are involved, and helping them to see how to integrate the new truths from this place. Ultimately, however, my overarching intention when this question arises is to help each partner find his or her own values and to make his or her own decision from an open-hearted, informed, and mutually responsible place. While these are times that hold great pain, they also hold such potential for growth, discovery, and transformation no matter the outcome.
Specialties
I am experienced in working with individuals and couples related to:
- emotional, sexual, and medical traumas
- relationship and marital issues
- anxiety, avoidance, or terror in intimate relationships
- loss and grief, including traumatic loss
- depression and anxiety
- low self-esteem and negative self-image
- eating disorders and body-image issues.
Through the process of their healing, these clients have taught me and themselves about the resiliency of the human spirit and the possibility of transforming our most stuck, fearful, confusing, and painful moments into deep and enduring wisdom and love.
