While I work with all kinds of folks, I’d say that I work best with artists, radicals, young women processing early trauma or shame, or any person searching for a deeper meaning in life. That said, I have also worked quite well with business folks looking to get reacquainted with a more playful and imaginative side of themselves. As a former professor, I do have handouts and can give homework which some clients enjoy. However, I like to keep therapy accessible, and often that means not overloading you! Figuring out each session what your capacity is, we stay flexible to your needs as they arise. Below is a description of the main therapy modalities I use and how they might play out. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out! I’d love to have a conversation.
Mindfulness, ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy)
- Articulate and prioritize values in relationships, health, spirituality, work and education, friendship, mental health, and romance
- Increase capacity for present moment awareness
- Increase emotional regulation and groundedness
- Improve ability to return to Window of Tolerance (stability) when triggered
- Increase awareness of triggers and distress tolerance to make living in line with values accessible
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing)
- Practice grounding skills and adaptive coping strategies such as Mindfulness, somatics, expressive arts therapy
- Identify themes causing present distress such as issues of control, value, responsibility, and safety
- Identify distressing thoughts linked to troubling memories and preferred positive thoughts such as “I am safe,” “I do belong,” “I am loveable,” “I am capable.”
- Map memories across your life related to distressing thoughts and themes
- Using bilateral stimulation, access the imaginative healing capacity to reprocess troubling events and create restorative neural network
- Improve daily functioning and self-esteem; de-emphasize troubling memories from everyday life
Narrative Therapy
- Map the landscape of problematic symptoms to understand the timeline and affects of symptoms such as anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, fatigue, body-image issues, relationship struggles, or productivity related to ADHD or CPTSD (Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)
- Restore agency by uncovering subterranean plots, alternative narratives, untold or silenced stories representing survival and hope for the future
Expressive Arts Therapy
Whether you want to write a book about your experiences, create art pieces to access emotions and process pain, or document your healing, make a plan that fits with your personal artistic aspirations:
- Journalling, Poetry, Visual Art Exercises: Tapping into natural healing capacity
- Sand-play therapy: Receiving restorative guidance from the unconscious through play
- Dream Work: Accessing messages and themes through the unconscious
- Art and Nature
- Parts work such as Internal Family Systems (IFS) or Carl Jung’s “parts” re: The Red Book: Dialogue, learn from, and reason with adaptive parts of yourself
