My Approach
“There’s no liberation without actually leaning forward and looking at the things that we habitually run away from, in order to see things as they really are.”
“ Nothing happens in isolation. There is always a squad, collaborators, a body that supports change occurring.”
I work from a combination of models through a trauma-informed, liberatory lens.
Within each therapy relationship we will discover what is helpful from my training for your lived experience. We’ll also work together to access your own embodied wisdom to guide the process. I see psychotherapy as a collaborative, creative process that grows uniquely into being in each client-therapist relationship.
Seeing ourselves, our patterns, our pain, and our potential clearly is not a process we can do alone. Like Sue Carlson says, we can’t know what we don’t know about ourselves! My approach is rooted in the belief that we are naturally driven to grow and heal, and that process is greatly helped by relationship with safe and trusted others who see us, help us see ourselves, and hold the work with us.
It’s also critical to note the way environmental, systemic, and internalized oppressions from our varying identities deeply impact our mental health and wellbeing.
As Smruti Desai says, systemic oppression cannot be solved by individual therapy. Still, I believe therapy can be one place where we both investigate our part in, and tend to the ways we are impacted by, oppressive heirarchical systems.
I believe the therapist’s integrity matters deeply to the process, and I’m committed to regularly investigating and uprooting white supremacist and capitalist ideas of healing and well-being from my practice.
Some of the models I draw from include: relational psychodynamic therapy, liberation psychology, psychoanalytic principles, internal family systems, attachment theory, neurobiology, somatic experiencing, queer theory and systems theory. Deeply crucial are the wisdoms of the body, of nature, and of the creative process.
I am a member of the Northwest Alliance for Psychoanalytic Study and the Center for Object Relations, and consistently pursue continuing education in trauma treatment across various modalities.