Every human being experiences anxiety at some point in their lives. It is a part of the human experience, of survival. But what happens when anxiety turns into a wildfire and touches almost every area of our life? What happens when anxiety may actually be a symptom of a deeper condition - like OCD? I want to help you learn how to actually work with your brain, your thoughts, your mind. You can’t throw an intrusive thought at me that I haven’t heard before. Bring your worst, your scariest thoughts. We may use a variety of techniques, like CBT, ACT, or ERP, but we will learn how to have more control of our minds. We will learn that we don’t have to believe every thought, emotion, or sensation. It’s time to experience some freedom.

Our culture is not kind to us. We are constantly under scrutiny, compared, and told that we need to be something other than the skin we were given. My goal is to help you foster a healthy, authentic relationship with yourself. Often times, this means learning how to accept the parts of ourself that we don’t love or like. Taking time to learn what those parts of us bring to the table when we’ve only looked at them as something “bad.” This work may also include healing from past body trauma and shame.

This is where I really cut my teeth as a therapist. I served as a Bereavement Coordinator and a Grief Counselor for a Hospice agency for several years. Going through grief experiences early on in my own life, I felt called to offer a steady presence to people who have found themselves in a place they never asked to be. We might find ourselves dispelling myths about grief, learning how to live after loss, or even processing through the trauma of a loss. Your loss does not have to be death-related in order to feel grief. Grief can come with any kind of loss, major transition, or change.

With perinatal mental health, I look to support people through pre-conception, pregnancy, birth and beyond. This can be a very vulnerable time and a time when mental health conditions that may have been under wraps start to emerge. I’ve completed continuing education through Postpartum Support International so that I can better serve individuals, couples, and families who are in this season of life.

I define trauma as the worst thing that’s happened to you. We might be working through childhood trauma, complex/chronic/prolonged trauma, or a single, traumatic event (like a car accident).

If trauma is the event/the thing that happened, then PTSD is the aftermath. Do we experience fight/flight/freeze/fawn? Are there certain triggers that come up for us that activate that survival response?

There’s no one size fits all when it comes to what therapy we might want to use with trauma. I find a lot of effectiveness combining approaches like EMDR, IFS, and somatic work. We call these our “bottom up” therapies, because they help us to support the body and the nervous system. And we often find our trauma wounds lodged somewhere in the body and the nervous system!