In addition to my training and education in counseling, I rely on more than 20+ years of experience studying human performance, human behavior, and organizational behavior in my previous careers in sports, business, and marketing. I bring to my work a broad multicultural and international experience, after living, working, or studying in half a dozen countries. I see my role as your partner in growth, who works to help you discover your own resilience so you can create the life you deserve. My clients find me helpful at managing an array of difficulties, including relationship problems, sexual trauma, breaking free of a rut, managing anxiety, and moving into personal discover and growth, among other issues. I offer a safe, supportive, nonjudgmental, and encouraging space. We work together to help you uncover your true beliefs, attitudes, feelings, and behaviors, then use this insight to help you create a pattern of success. I also created my own trade marked therapy approach Positive Existential Therapy or PET to address client challenges that were not responding to outdated counseling techniques. While I fully maintain my license as a professional counselor in multiple US states, I now exclusively offer coaching services.

Our relationships with others--partners, friends, family, co-workers, and community members--add meaning to our lives. I use a family systems approach, which means I explore your past and present relationships, so you can function better and increase fulfillment. Whether I meet with just you or your entire family, I look at how current and past interactions may contribute to current challenges, as well as ways relationships can help resolve a problem. My work helps you uncover underlying issues, so you gain greater insight and find solutions, rather than just looking at symptoms. We will look at relationship patterns, triggers and coping strategies, and how they affect you and others in your life. I want to help you address current issues so you can cultivate stronger relationships. I rely on techniques from a variety of perspectives, including emotionally focused therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Understanding and addressing the dynamic of ADHD in relationships is also a specialty area.

Are you confused, frustrated and angry? Have you invested a lot into your relationship but your partner always makes you feel "not good enough"? Are you treated like a second class citizen in your own house? Slowly even you believe that something is wrong with you? The more unfair it gets, the more you try to prove how good you are. Now you have reached the point to where you do even more for your significant other. What's wrong with that picture? Doesn't it feel like a trap? It might be and it is called Emotional Manipulation. On the surface it might sound loving and caring, but in reality it is designed to induce guilt, shame or anxiety. Without recognition, anyone would do whatever it takes to avoid those painful, negative feelings. The manipulator only needs to give "hints" or "directions" what you are expected to do and you instinctively jump to do it. It?s logical. Gradually, the manipulator controls more and more parts of your life. The emotional toll is devastating: the relationship is highly pressurized. Your Self-Esteem is deep down from the constant negative judgments. You are full of doubts about yourself and about the motives of your partner. You feel no matter what you do, you cannot change the situation. I see why you feel that way: someone else controls your emotions and behavior. Additionally, you are right when you think you cannot change the manipulator. Although there is a slim chance for change: you can change your responses to the manipulative attempts. By so doing, it changes the whole pattern. There is help and there is hope! I can help you to unveil the manipulative process, to respond differently and to override manipulation. You can restore your confidence and improve your Self-Esteem. You can create a fairer, more respectful, more balanced relationship. Please check my website for details, and don't be shy to give me a call. Free Initial Consultation I am preferred provider at First Choice Health Aetna United Behavioral Health Group Health Regence Other Insurance Companies might pay partial fee as "Out of Network Provider". Please ask your policy!

In order to find out if I would be that fit for you, I would like to tell you what I think therapy is about, what I provide as a therapist ,and what I expect from you. I view therapy as being one of many healing modality in which a person can shift the emotional, mental, and spiritual hurts that exist with being human. I see therapy as an active process with healthy collaboration on both the part of the therapist and the client. In order to provide the healing you seek, therapy requires the capacity to be vulnerable and honest with your therapist. I believe therapy is building trust with yourself and your therapist while shifting your thinking and behavior to more healthy actions and thoughts. I provide therapy that is part thinking outside the box and part traditional cognitive- behavioral therapy. Therapy is about turning over those moss covered stones in your mind and examining those “creepy crawlies” so they stop have power over you. Therapy is about facing your past with integrity in order to take the power out of those stories you tell yourself that keep you stuck and unhappy. Although therapy is not purely about “just getting happy.” Therapy is about finding more peace within yourself to actually be true to yourself and kind to yourself. Our sessions are set up to help you weed out the behaviors that no longer serve you and help you develop healthier and more supportive actions in your life. Therapy with me is additionally about exploring your inner world, how you talk to yourself, and your take care of your inner landscape your inner child. It is about finding the internal spark drive of what gets you up in the morning. What I provide is assistance with developing healthy boundaries, assertive communication skills, positive actions, relaxation techniques, and compassionate self talk. What I ask from you is that you are ready to take the actions on a mental, emotional, behavioral and or spiritual level to make changes for a better life. I am a no nonsense kind of therapist, that is deeply compassionate and works only with those ready to dive fully into the healing process. If you identify as the type of person who is in “survival mode” and wants and is ready to be in a state of living, the we can work together. Please know that I work with a team of different providers in order to help you make the changes that need to happen. These providers include naturopathic doctors, life coaches, Qi Gong teachers, 12 step members, acupuncturists, medical astrologers, etc. If you are ready to do this kind of work then please contact me. You can also visit Mindful Therapy Group, Mountlake Terrace and find out a bit more about me. "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." Anais Nin

I believe therapy works best when we look beyond the individual and explore the relationships, experiences, and patterns that shape who you are. As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and sex therapist, I bring a relational and systemic approach to helping individuals, couples, and families build healthier connections with themselves and each other. Whether we’re working through relationship challenges, intimacy and sexuality, communication, life transitions, or personal growth, I offer a warm, collaborative, and judgment-free space where you can be honest, curious, and fully yourself.

Now more than ever, in the COVID-19 crisis, therapy can help you to cope with heightened anxiety, depression, loneliness, and lack of purpose. With online video conferencing, I can provide regular therapy without you coming into the office. Therapy provides a safe place to ask the questions that scare us, to find connection and healing, to feel good and be authentic, and take charge of our lives. I support clients' efforts to gain insight into the sources of their challenges and pain, find connection, make positive changes in relationships, identify strengths and resources, cope with personal history, and take charge of their life. I help children, teens, and adults cope with stress, express themselves honestly, and explore personal meaning and purpose. I have experience working with children as a school counselor and in the child welfare system, and working with children, teens, and adults in private practice. I use relational psychodynamic methods, with insights from CBT and other modalities. My approach as a therapist is to provide warm and attentive listening, unconditional positive regard, gentle honesty and encouragement, as I join with you in the project of telling and understanding your story, and feeling your best. I am an MDiv and am open to your religious experience. I am also available for teletherapy from the privacy of your own home.

I am a psychotherapist in the Ballard area and work primarily with adults in individual therapy. I hold a Master's Degree in Counseling Psychology from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology and my approach is based on relational therapy and attachment-based, psychodynamic, and trauma-informed theories. My aim as a therapist is to help you come to the realization of being accepted as you are—fully, without judgment or restriction—and to feel truly seen, heard, and understood. Maybe you’ve noticed old relational patterns, shaped in childhood, repeating in your adult life, leaving you feeling disconnected, anxious, or stuck. You may want healing from wounds formed in past relationships and a new way of relating to yourself and others. You want to feel more genuine, confident, and free to live the life you truly desire. If our wounds are formed in relationships, they can be healed within them. Together, we’ll explore your story with compassion, uncover patterns, and begin healing what has kept you from the life you want. I provide in-person sessions and telehealth (when appropriate).

Are you and your partner feeling disconnected? Maybe you’ve been arguing a lot these days. Or perhaps you want to strengthen your relationship and learn the skills to prevent problems before they even begin. You're ready to experience new ways of connecting with each other, but you aren't sure where to start. Couples therapy is a space where you and your partner can explore what a fulfilling relationship looks like for you. You're in the right place if you want to work on communicating productively, reducing conflict, increasing understanding, building trust, navigating differences, and deepening intimacy and connection. I am trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and Gottman Method Couples Therapy. These approaches aim to help you identify the patterns in your relationship that are keeping you stuck and discover strategies to break free from those patterns, deepen your connection, and navigate life as a team.

I believe that the struggles that bring you to therapy are often symptoms of deeper unsettledness. Thus to address the current symptoms of your distress we may need to look beneath the surface and reflect on your life up to this point. That data is then used to enhance your awareness and to help you deliberately and consciously choose who you want to be and how you would like to move forward. I believe that your past relational experiences are immeasurably influential upon the development of your beliefs, ideas, thoughts, and choices. Based on this premise, we will explore the intricacies of these relationships and their influence on your specific struggles in an effort to identify, understand and address the sources of these struggles. We will explore how your way of relating contributes to the nature of your relationships, with the hope of cultivating awareness, compassion, and volition. By seeking and attending to the source of your distress we will address the symptoms as well as the roots. Our relationship is the primary context for change. My role as a therapist is to create a safe space for you to discover and live out your truest self. We will work together to identify barriers that may stem from past experiences or limiting beliefs that keep you from relating most authentically with others. And we will work together to develop strategies and tools that may help you along the way toward greater authenticity and contentment.

As a therapist, I work to develop a relationship of collaboration and attunement to support clients in realizing the change they seek in their lives. I have extensive experience with adults and teens working through trauma, anxiety, and depression, as well as family and other relational issues, work stress and life transitions. I use a variety of practical, skills-based techniques nested in larger life-contexts of family and culture, to explore solutions and rediscover hope. I take an active approach giving feedback, suggesting actions, and assigning homework. I will work with you to develop more kindness and compassion for yourself in your journey towards self-discovery and wellness.

Relational in nature, my approach to therapy is rooted in witnessing rather than analysis. I believe that healing is the result of being truly seen by a compassionate other. In our time together, you can expect me to set all judgments aside in order to create space for your unique complexities to unfold. In this opened clearing, we will do the work of therapeutic integration so you can rediscover that sense of wholeness that was always there even when obscured. My background in existential-phenomenological psychology has led to my endless curiosity in the subjective experience of the suffering individual. As an existential therapist, I believe that we come into this world already burdened, and the issues that cause you to seek help are not personal pitfalls but features of existence. With this as our starting point, we will work together to reframe your struggles with a meaning-making lens, emboldening you to take over your own narrative. I look forward to accompanying you on your healing journey.