Services
About My Clients
You are a busy, driven professional. And life has thrown you a curveball of anxiety, depression, burnout, funkiness in your relationship, or a kind of listless directionlessness. You may be brand new to seeing a therapist or a therapy regular. You are married or in a relationship where you are pissed, bored, or need to brush up on communication skills. You want someone who works towards YOUR goals, who gets cross-cultural couple dynamics, or even gender and power dynamics.
My Background and Approach
There are 5 legs to the "getting better stool" as I call it. 1. How you think (Cognitive Therapy / ACT Therapy) 2. How you sense and feel in your body (Somatic and Trauma Therapy) 3. How you relate to yourself and other people (Attachment and IFS Therapies) 4. What is happening in your unconscious (The old school Freud / Jung stuff) 5. The Context that shaped you (social systems, oppression, gender, race, identity, poverty) I have spent 25 years in my own therapy and always felt "does it need to take this long?" so I do have a desire for effectiveness. And sometimes things do take a while. But at the root I take an integrative, practical, and empowering approach. Relationship dynamics and complex PTSD are my specialties. I am a collaborator not a know-it-all. We decide together the right number of meetings per month. I am not a breathy conflict-averse therapist. The way you and I relate is part of the work. We are moving toward your goals, not mine.
My Personal Beliefs and Interests
I believe we carry a long history of collective trauma that is not just caused by mom and dad but by generations worth of social and political trauma. I believe healing is activism. I also don't think therapy, 1 on 1, is the only way we heal, which is why I have organized over 10,000 people to listen to strangers on public sidewalks. In 2015 I started listening to people's stories on public sidewalks as justice work. Listening. www.sidewalk-talk.org I was sponsored by the Human Rights Institute and Islamic Society to listen on sidewalks in the south after Donald Trump was elected. Power over / power under explorations have been my jam for a long time. You can't have a world without power. You can have a world where we use it more wisely and heal from the traumas of past traumas of power. My undergraduate studies were in political science. I engage with listening organizations that participate in bridging polarized divides.