My Approach to Helping
There are some experiences and feelings that, no matter how hard we may try to avoid, we cannot escape. Pain. Loss. Struggle. Heartbreak. Failure. It may not always feel possible, but each of us has the power to reduce our suffering by consciously choosing how we react to and cope with life’s challenges.
As a holistic and integrative therapist, I am passionate about fusing Western and Eastern healing modalities in order to support my clients in gaining the necessary insight and skills to live their best, healthiest and most authentic life. I specialize in working with diverse individuals, especially young adults, navigating through life transitions and experiencing anxiety and stress, relationship challenges, low self-esteem, lossgrief and depression. Most clients are drawn to working with me because they are looking for concrete skills to apply to and improve their everyday lives and or address specific concerns. I understand that therapy is a huge investment, and I, too, am fully invested in providing my clients with practical tools to successfully navigate through life and to realize significant and observable change.
Passionate about fusing traditional psychotherapy with a creative and comprehensive approach, I believe that there is no "one size fits all" in therapy. With extensive experience and training in psychotherapy, positive psychology, mindfulness, Buddhist philosophy, meditation and yoga, I aim to uniquely tailor therapy sessions to each client’s needs by utilizing a variety of techniques that address mind, body and soul and that encourage emotional, behavioral, and cognitive change. Generally, I work to help my clients broaden their awareness, gain insight, challenge problematic patterns, learn healthy coping skills, enhance mind, body and soul, live mindfully and authentically and seek their unique version of joy. Above all, I believe that the strongest therapeutic relationships are built on trust, respect, transparency, empathy and equality, and I always counsel from a nonjudgmental place of understanding and compassion.
More Info About My Practice
I tend to play a more active role in sessions and believe it’s important to offer psycho-education, supportive reflection and feedback and skills training when appropriate. While the seeds of change, awareness and deeper understanding of self and others are planted during our sessions together, actionable change happens between sessions when you have the opportunity to put your hard work into practice. Therefore, I provide my clients with an arsenal of practical tools and techniques to integrate and successfully navigate through their lives and may provide "homework," activities, practices and readings to help reinforce and strengthen actionable change.
What I Love about Being a Psychotherapist
I truly can't think of a more humbling honor and privilege than working as a therapist and being given the opportunity to bear witness to and provide space for someone to share the most vulnerable parts of themselves and their lives. I think we live in a very lonely, scary and challenging world and knowing that people have the courage to invest in themselves and their well-being always gives me hope for a better tomorrow. I am deeply moved and inspired by the pain and perseverance of the human condition - people's abilities to sit with the heaviness of life, to look at themselves in the mirror with a critical eye, to be open to feedback and learning and growing. When I was younger, I used to tell people I wanted to make significant change in the world, and they would give me the "that's cute" smile. The thing is, I truly believe that the act of supporting, empowering, and investing time, energy, an unconditional belief in growth and achievement, care and respect can alter an individual's life and, through a powerful ripple effect, change the world for the better. Therapists create change in the world every day.
Had a Negative Therapy Experience?
Many of my clients are drawn to working with me after they've had disappointing experiences in therapy and are feeling unsatisfied with the results of their mental health investment. While therapy looks different for everyone, most of my clients are looking for a more active, creative, somatic and supportive approach that provides them with concrete skills to apply to and improve their everyday lives. I firmly hold the belief that while the seeds of change, awareness and deeper understanding of self and others are planted in our sessions together, actionable change happens in between sessions when you have the opportunity to put your hard work into practice. Therefore, my goal is to provide my clients with an arsenal of practical tools and techniques to integrate as their own, so that they can successfully navigate through life. Therapy is a huge investment in yourself and your life, and I, too, am fully invested in helping you realize significant and observable change.
How My Own Struggles Made Me a Better Therapist
I believe, in many cases, people are drawn to helping professions because they, themselves, have been or are in need of help and understand, on a deeply personal level, what it's like to seek personal growth and guidance, just as their patients clients do. That's certainly the case for me. I know what it feels like to hurt, to struggle, to feel lost and overwhelmed and helpless, to not know where to turn or what to do. Therapist Lori Gottlieb says it better than I could: "Therapists, of course, deal with the daily challenges of living just like everyone else. This familiarity, in fact, is at the root of the connection we forge with strangers who trust us with their most delicate stories and secrets. Our training has taught us theories and tools and techniques, but whirring beneath our hard-earned expertise is the fact that we know just how hard it is to be a person. Of all my credentials as therapist, my most significant one is that I?m a card-carrying member of the human race." Because I know what it's like to hurt, I am drawn to help heal.
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.
