My Approach to Helping
Your relationships can be your safe harbor. My goal is to attune to your needs in a safe and caring space, help you create secure and nurturing relationships, and guide you on your journey of growth and wellness
As a therapist, I am guided by the idea that the more effectively dependent we are on each other, the more independent and adventurous we become. In other words, the more we feel connected, able to trust and count on a romantic partner, a family member or a friend, the more we feel capable of taking on life's challenges, the more uncertainty we can tolerate, and the braver we become. It is when we stop feeling that security and trust in our relationships, when we stop feeling emotionally connected and not heard and seen that issues arise all the while being unable to access deep emotions and needs and communicate them clearly to one another. My work is to help you identify those emotions and needs and be able to express them with care and vulnerability.
Specific Issue(s) I'm Skilled at Helping With
My specialty is working with relationship concerns and distress with couples and individuals. I am a trauma-informed Emotionally Focused Therapist with extensive training in Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples and individuals (EFCT and EFIT). My couples' work has been on emotional disconnection, communication concerns, infidelity, betrayal, and polyamory and open relationship concerns. My work with individual adults has been on developing a stronger sense of self and self-worth and on feeling more heard, seen, and connected in the context of their close relationships.
How Psychotherapy Can Help
COUPLES THERAPY
I will help you and your partner identify your pattern of emotional disconnection and tension in your cycle of criticize and defend or demand and withdraw bringing it to the fore and slowing it down by tracing the steps in the pattern and outlining each partner's coping strategies and attachments styles. With this new information and understanding, partners are better able to change the steps of this "dance" in new and effectives ways that foster better communication, understanding and emotional connection.
INDIVIDUAL THERAPY
The goal in session with me is to help you get unstuck from ineffective emotional and relational patterns and coping strategies by creating more effective ones and learning to effectively regulate emotion. In the process, you will work on potential anxiety and depression that can arise from feeling disconnected from yourself and others while becoming more secure within yourself and your relationships. You will be able to create a stronger sense of self and view of others that will allow for living with the fullness of who you are and create and maintain secure and nurturing relationships.
