get into your aliveness.
“There’s no liberation without actually leaning forward and looking at the things that we habitually run away from, in order to see things as they really are.”
depth oriented psychotherapy for people who’ve been through some sh*T.
About therapy with me:
Maybe you’ve noticed: there are about a million different kinds of therapy modalities. Some focus on your thoughts, some are about behavior, some are entirely about the body. Many subtly suggest they’re the #1 key to getting yourself good and healed—but in my view we humans are complex, relational beings. Our minds and bodies are interconnected, so I believe an integrative approach that sees you holistically makes the most sense.
In therapy with me, instead of running through a protocol or sticking to a singular modality, we will build a relationship over time—finding out together what’s useful from my training for your unique experience. Therapy isn’t something I do to you but is a process I’m in with you.
Working with what we’ve been through, learning to be with our emotional experience, finding some freedom and aliveness in a messed up world — most of us need help with these processes. We form our ways of dealing with life early on, and often there’s a lot to that outside our conscious awareness. It takes a respectful and trustworthy relationship to help us see ourselves and our fields clearly. As we make room to listen deeply to your experience, your body, your mind and your symptoms, a process begins. Things stir to the surface and space opens up that can create the conditions for lasting growth and change.
In sessions, I’m direct, warm, real, and engaged. I’ve experienced in my own life the transformative power of this kind of work, and I believe the therapist’s integrity matters deeply to the process. I’m committed to investigating the racist, capitalist hierarchies we’re all handed about healing and well-being, and take a firm de-pathologizing, anti-carceral, pro-community stance that centers the autonomy of my patients.
Therapy with me is not light work, and it takes time, but it’s also not all intense and serious. You put two people who have some DSM diagnoses in a room together, you’re gonna be cracking up. That’s just science!
Areas of Focus:
I often work with people who feel like outsiders or in-between-ers, as well as people who’ve had difficult experiences with other attempts at therapy. Some clinical areas of focus include:
Complex Trauma, CPTSD
Developmental Trauma
Sexual trauma including childhood sexual abuse
Religious trauma and cult recovery
Depression, anxiety, dissociation
Ambiguous grief and loss, life transitions
Queer and trans clients (kink+ sex work + and nonmonogamy+)
Multicultural backgrounds, highly mobile backgrounds, TCKs, artists
White people working with whiteness
Training and Approach:
My background blends trauma treatment, psychoanalytic psychotherapy, somatics, parts work (IFS) and decolonial approaches to healing. I’m a member of the Northwest Alliance for Psychoanalytic Study, a participant in Fieldwork with Leah Manaema Avene, train in politicized somatics as woven by Nazbah Tom, Kai Cheng Thom and Fayza Bundalli along with Zoe Paulette, and consistently pursue continuing education in trauma treatment across various modalities. I’m particularly influenced by Trauma Informed Stabilization Treatment, which blends techniques from Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Internal Family Systems, structural dissociation theory, and mindfulness-based cognitive approaches. Queer theory, systems approaches, and the creative process guide me too.
Logistics:
Rhythm: Once per week. Often as the work progresses, meeting 2x/3x per week can be useful.
Fee: $100 - $160 / 50 min session sliding scale
I reserve openings in my schedule at a reduced rate for those who experience discrimination in hiring and pay level, people who are descended from enslaved peoples and Indigenous peoples, and some other situations on a case by case basis. Don’t hesitate to ask about a reduced rate with me during a consultation.
How to Inquire:
I offer an initial free consultation to open up what brings you to therapy and to get a sense of each other and this work. Get in touch here.
“When we view living. . . only as a problem to be solved, we rely solely upon our ideas to make us free, for these were what the white fathers told us were precious. But as we come more into touch with our own ancient, non-european consciousness of living as a situation to be experienced and interacted with, we learn more and more to cherish our feelings, and to respect those hidden sources of our power from where true knowledge and, therefore, lasting action comes. ”