I want to help my clients move beyond simply not feeling so depressed, anxious, angry, manic or suicidal. I want to help them transcend their pain, feel like they are fulfilling their purpose in life, are able to truly love themselves and are cultivating relationships that feed their soul. Narrative Therapy teaches my clients to transform the meaning of what they have been through and techniques from Existential Therapy help clients create or discover their purpose.

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I use self-compassion training to dismantle the judgment, shame and self-blame that drive depression, anxiety and psychosis. DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) and CBT (Cognitive Behavior Therapy) teach my clients practical coping and effective communication skills. My clients heal from the deep wounds of trauma and loss that are at the root of their struggles through Psychodynamic Therapy and Somatic Experiencing.

I wish I had a time machine so you could go back and repair your past. Instead, I will help you transform the story you tell yourself about the things that are hard to move on from and change the meaning you make of your most painful experiences so that you can grow more present today and step into tomorrow with a perspective of optimism and openness.

I am not a psychologist. I got my undergrad degree in sociology and my masters degree in social work. This gives me a wide angle perspective that helps me understand my client's struggles in the larger context of social forces such as poverty, cis-heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, ableism and colonialism. A big part of my work is about helping my clients to unlearn the ways that society has trained them to scapegoat, judge, shame and even hate themselves.

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This Maya Angelou quote encapsulates my approach to helping clients work with their thoughts and feelings rather than against them

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"If you’re not angry, you’re either a stone, or you’re too sick to be angry. You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure. So use that anger, yes. You write it. You paint it. You dance it. You march it. You vote it. You do everything about it. You talk it. Never stop talking it.”

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Similarly, Lisa Borden from the Southern Poverty Law Center says, “If you aren't outraged, then you just aren't paying attention". I feel like this sentiment can be generalized to most other unpleasant emotions. We could say, "If you aren't depressed, you're not paying attention" or "If you aren't anxious, you're not paying attention". The world is depressing, anxiety provoking and traumatizing. Hence, struggling with depression, anxiety, trauma, substance use, psychosis or self-harm does not indicate that there is anything wrong with you. It simply means that you are tuned into the rampant suffering and injustice in the world and have absorbed some of it. The point is, you are not the problem and your struggles are not your fault. It is your responsibility however, to take ownership over your own recovery and healing. I want to support you along your journey of empowerment as you decolonize your mind and transcend your past while taking ownership over your future. One way I will do that is to help you learn how to honor and validate all of your thoughts and feelings even when they are not what you want them to be. Even the most disturbing thought or most excruciating feeling, is just a thought or feeling and my clients learn how to not allow their thoughts or feelings to dictate their decisions or their behavior.

Even thoughts about suicide can be re-framed and worked with rather than worked against. Many of my clients learn how to trace their struggles with suicidal ideation to the part of them that values or loves themselves. Revelations along the lines of, "I want to be dead because I want my suffering to end and I want my suffering to end because I care about myself" are very common. Realizing that a desire to die springs forth from a place of self-love can be quite the epiphany because now the suicidal thought triggers feelings of self-compassion and nudges the person to take alternative action to show themselves that self-love in a way that is healthy and safe.