My Approach to Helping
Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? Eating issues and addiction, especially for queer, trans, Black, Indigenous, and people of color (QTBIPOC), often begin as a survival strategy. Your addiction and/or disordered eating may have been your first coping mechanism against racism, homophobia, classism, sexism, or other forms of trauma or abuse. Do you feel disconnected from your body or yourself? Do you feel incapable of facing life without the "help" of these behaviors, or have they helped you escape and/or become your safe place?
We explore what's hidden beneath your addiction, eating issues, and/or eating issues. Using somatic practices and parts work, we safely dive deep into the issues that may have caused your eating behaviors and addictions to occur in the first place.
We use tools like breathwork and tapping to regulate the body, while holding space for your lived experience to be felt and expressed. During the process of working through what may have created the dependence on substances, food, or lack of food, we learn how to map our nervous system's survival responses and patterns. What survival response do you most live in when faced with life stressors or past or present traumas?
Your world might feel scary right now, but you don't have to bear it alone. It takes courage to reach out for support and declare, "I've had enough!" Despite how challenging it might feel right now, I believe you can grow, change, and evolve. Together, we will find practical and/or creative solutions to those persistent issues.
I'm not just saying this because it sounds nice. I've lived it myself. I come to this work with professional and personal experience. I struggled with addiction and an eating issue during my 20s and early 30s. Point of Information: I'm 44 now. I've spent years in therapy addressing the traumas that led to my eating issue and addiction challenges. I know it seems impossible now, but there is freedom on the other side of these behaviors, and you don't have to go it alone.
We heal in community. I believe people can move past deep attachment wounding and trauma. I believe this because I've seen it in myself, the folks I work with, colleagues, and friends.
More Info About My Practice
Specialty Treatment Orientations:
Integrative therapy
I don't believe in a one-size-fits-all model of treatment. I instead blend evidence-based techniques to match your unique challenges and help you reach your desired goals. For example, with addiction or substance use, I might blend motivational interviewing with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). Motivational interviewing helps you explore your mixed feelings about change, while cognitive behavioral therapy helps you identify triggers and rewire your thought patterns, and dialectical behavior therapy teaches you how to sit with discomfort instead of numbing out.
Internal Family Systems
All parts have positive intent within the system, even the ones we don't like (such as the eating issue or addictive part). We use "parts work" to help you understand how these parts have developed. You may have a restrictive part that believes being in a smaller body will keep you safe from abandonment, or a binge part that might believe food is the only way to numb the loneliness or fear within you. Through "parts work," we uncover the "job" of the eating issue and find safer ways to meet our needs.
Somatic therapy: Body-based healing for emotional trauma
The way through is within the body. Through somatic interventions, we learn how to release what is stored in the body and heal from the inside out. When stuck in a survival mode like fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, we can use somatic tools to discharge what is stored in the body. We use titration to slowly revisit traumatic memories while tracking body sensations. Pendulation helps us shift between tension and relaxation to create internal safety, and shaking is used to release trapped energy.
Specialty Issues
Addiction:
As a therapist who's worked in almost every corner of addiction treatment, from dual diagnosis centers to state prisons to trauma hospitals, I believe recovery is possible. Addiction is not just about the substance; it's about what is underneath it. Addiction is about using something outside ourselves to "fix" something within us. Addiction is the symptom of much greater issues within us. When we address the underlying issue of substance use, we can decrease the dependence on the substance.
Posttraumatic stress (PTSD)
Through my years of work within trauma hospital units, correctional facilities, and dual diagnosis treatment centers, I've witnessed firsthand how trauma can reshape a person's life and perception of the world and themselves within the world. When we live from our past and within our survival patterns, we become closed off to ourselves and the world. Through somatic work, we rewire the brain through the body, and what is stored in the body is released.
Eating issues
I've worked with folks within inpatient residential eating issue treatment and outpatient care. Eating issues thrive in isolation, and they're often a symptom of a deeper issue. It's usually the first coping mechanism used to deal with stress or trauma within the home. Eating issues fracture your relationship with your body. Nourishment, in any form, can feel terrifying when restriction or bingeing has made you feel "safety" within your body and the world.
Clinicians who offer sliding scale payment structures may offer lower or reduced fees based on an individual's ability to pay. Please contact this clinician for more details regarding their fees or sliding scale policy.