Find a Therapist in Helena, MT

If you are done repeating the same old fights, tired of feeling down, ready to feel less anxious and want to move forward in your life, I would love to work with you. My role as a therapist is to help you understand what is working and what is not working so well in your life. Together we will target symptoms of anxiety and PTSD, shift negative habits, and help create new patterns of health and well being. We figure out together how to move you towards the life you want, and create lasting changes so you can feel more in charge, and figure out your next best steps forward. Therapy is a terrific tool to help you see the patterns in your life. It can be an incredible opportunity to learn more about how your brain works, and how your thoughts, feelings, behaviors and relationships are all interconnected. Improving communication, better understanding yourself and your patterns, and overcoming past traumas are all possible goals for us to address. Therapy challenges you to try things in a different way, and to examine how you think about and view the world around you. Call for a free 10 minute consultation to see if we are a good fit to work together!

My approach to helping others is grounded primarily in the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) tradition and is strongly influenced by the principles of the Transdiagnostic Model of Emotional Disorders (also known as the Unified Protocol), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and by Buddhist Psychology and the Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction model. I prefer to work within a relatively short-term treatment model clearly focused on agreed upon treatment goals and objectives. If you choose to work with me, we will identify your goals for treatment during the first couple of sessions and we will then pursue an approach to treatment that is designed to help you achieve your goals and objectives. I will encourage you to pursue potentially useful life enhancement activities between sessions which may include researching relevant topics on the internet, reading self-help books, practicing relaxation or meditation techniques, and so on.

I am a licensed psychotherapist who works with individual adults, couples, adolescents and children who are having difficulties with a wide range of emotional distress and would like to make positive changes. These emotional problems have underlying patterns that can be understood and changed through the process of psychotherapy. I provide a supportive environment and do high-quality work. I'm committed to helping my clients become emotionally well-adjusted, find meaning, and experience healthy relationships. For more information about the therapy modalities I use, including Psychodynamic therapy for individuals and Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT), please visit my website by clicking the link under my picture. Thank you for taking a look at my profile and if you have any questions please give me a call or email.

I believe therapy is a collaborative journey, where I meet you with genuine empathy, respect, and a commitment to your unique path. Drawing from humanistic, trauma-informed, and integrative principles, I create a safe, nonjudgmental space for exploration and healing. For children and families, I use play-based methods like child-centered play therapy and parent-child interaction therapy to build emotional skills, resilience, and stronger bonds, always tailoring to developmental needs. For adults, I focus on trauma recovery and anxiety management, blending evidence-based techniques to foster emotional regulation, self-compassion, and growth. Together, we uncover strengths, process challenges, and move toward greater wholeness and fulfillment.

I take an holistic approach, examining the here-and-now reality of the person's experiential, physical, interpersonal, and intra-psychic worlds. I help my people optimize function: maximizing emotional skill and freedom and reducing anxiety and strain. I believe in having the knowledge and networking developed to see that medical problems are addressed by skillful, trusted colleagues and then help clients address psychological issues, including nutritional, exercise-related, and sleep-related problems, as well as other problems due to over- or under-arousal of areas of the central nervous system. I strive to help people learn about themselves, especially how old patterns of feeling, anxiety, and defenses affect the quality of their lives and how this "habit malware" may be addressed by mindful choices promoting healthy changes for themselves and others around them.

We all carry the ability to create wellness in our lives. By approaching ourselves through mindfulness, we learn to study ourselves in an open and non-judgemental manner. In doing this, we come to better recognize our habitual patterns and the limiting beliefs we carry about ourselves. Through increased awareness we can become more responsive and less reactive in our lives. Through soft attention and non-reactivity, we are better able to discern our true nature and thus live more authentically in the world.

I have over two decades of experience in working with a broad range of clients as a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW), licensed addiction counselor (LAC), and certified clinical trauma professional (CCTP). I strive to provide my clients with a non-judgmental, professional environment where they can truly trust the therapeutic process to assist them in improving their lives.

With over 30 years of clinical experience, I provide compassionate, empowering, and affirming counseling services that are client-centered and goal-oriented and that develop and enhance my client's strengths and build their coping skills to manage the symptoms of a wide range of mental health conditions. I practice from a philosophy of empowering my clients to achieve balance with their mental and emotional health and to maintain healthy boundaries that support their well-being. I offer therapy sessions that support the goals for change that my clients are seeking for themselves once we both understand what my client wishes to see differently in their lives, then we can explore the interventions that best support the therapeutic work we will do together. In our therapy sessions, we will learn and practice concepts from interventions such as motivational interviewing, cognitive-behavioral therapy principles, cognitive processing therapy strategies, acceptance and commitment principles, and dialectical behavior therapy strategies to help you build a toolbox of skills and techniques the lead to your success with managing the effects of adversity and challenges in your life.