who I am and how I work
therapeutic approach
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Therapy is a second chance.
Our work together relies on establishing a safe, confidential and collaborative therapeutic space in which you and I try to understand your emotional reactions, thoughts, memories, fantasies, and sensations in an effort to lessen anxiety, increase choice, decrease personal suffering and to become more fully yourself. This second chance can bring in-depth understanding to your relationships, family, history, and self which provides a sense of mastery within your life. Our time together can depend in part on my ability to understand you and in countless ways exploring how your past has played a part in coloring your present. Our work can allow a freer future. We may foster together personal development and liberation from unsatisfying patters of living in this world and relating to those around you. Our work is an opportunity to courageously investigate interactions in your personal relationships, which provides a platform for moving forward into creativity, awareness, freedom and wholeness. Rather than diving in, together we wade into your experience - your story- patiently, yet expectantly, experiencing life through a new lens. Your journey inward can be fascinating, difficult, and rewarding. Therapy can help address low self esteem, free up your thinking, provide choice, and offer new opportunities to life, intimacy, relationships, and future. Ultimately, this can be a relief from what might feel like to much to handle on your own. Part of the goal of therapy might be understanding emotionally and intellectually why the experiences and perceptions of the past affect you today in the present. In my experience, individuals don't fall into simple categories. My therapeutic style is eclectic. A fuller understanding of numerous psychologies allows me to better understand who you are and how you would like to heal, grow, or explore the many unique parts of what make you you. My work is informed by the foundation of psychoanalytic thought.
Therapy typically begins with one-on-one weekly sessions. Though, depending on the nature of your needs, multiple sessions per week may be recommended. Effective therapy is based on regular, established sessions. Much is lost in bi-weekly or once monthly appointments. I recognize that this style of weekly therapy comes with what might be felt as a burdensome financial commitment. That being said, the power of our time together, our relationship, may alter the way you engage the world and relationships around you. The therapeutic process forms a uniquely crafted mosaic where you and I explore the intricate and diverse pieces of human relationship, where vivid meaning can arise often out of the most unexpected - sometimes broken- places, creating a coherent whole. |
training: |
I have over 14 years invested in various counseling settings and roles. I studied at the University of Washington, School of Social Work in Mental Health and received my graduate degree in Social Work Mental Health. My clinical social work therapy training included psychodynamic, psychoanalytic, and relational theories and practice. Prior to private practice, I worked with at-risk populations in community mental health and social service programs. I've also worked with a number of outdoor young adult wilderness programs. I view my personal and professional training as a requisite for my profession. I'm always learning, questioning, and wondering about the world around me. I remain curious. I'm regularly nudging myself toward deeper insight and growth to better inform my work with you.
LICSW LICENSE # LW60876564 |