About

Building curiosity and openness.

When I hear, “That’s a good question” or “I’ve never thought about that before,” I know I’m on the right path.

Part of what I aim to do is expand the realm of possibility in your feeling, thinking, and knowing. I want to help you imagine the new and unexpected. As you tap into more curiosity, you learn more about your own complexities, needs, and desires.

In sessions, we dig deep.

We don’t just stay on the surface, talking about tools (though there will be some of that, too) but about the root of your patterns and the painful beliefs you’ve been carrying since you were little, hiding from everyone.

Our time together is about ALL of you: the feelings that overwhelm you and make getting through even one more day hard. Your nervous system states and what your body is saying. The thoughts you just can’t let go of. The pain you’re afraid to speak out loud. The dreams you have for yourself that seem silly or unreachable.

I affirm your feelings, because all feelings are valid and have something to teach us. We will work to understand how they have helped you. The same goes for your thoughts. I will never tell you that thinking differently will fix a problem. Rather, we will explore them fully and and figure out why they show up and what they are doing for you.

Your mind wants to move toward well-being, and everything that happens internally is trying to get you there one way or another (even when it seems like the opposite is happening).

Social justice-informed therapy.

My therapeutic orientation is anti-oppressive and liberation-focused. I am about witnessing and healing, not treatment, based on your own ways of knowing rather than on studies and data.

Liberation-focused therapy holds space for the rage, grief, fear, and trauma of living in a marginalized body or mind. I reject colonial conceptions of individual pathology and place responsibility for trauma where it belongs: on the environment. It’s also important to attend to the joy, connection, resilience, and hope that sustain us. Thriving is a form of resistance, after all.

Working from a social justice counseling perspective means that I center your agency and consent. I offer suggestions for our work, but never tell you what’s right. I am transparent with you about modalities I might want to use. I’m happy to be more directive–if you want me to. We are a team. You know some things, I know some things, and we collaborate in support of your intentions.

I am committed to liberation for everyone. Black, Indigenous, and brown people; queer and trans people; fat people; disabled people … everyone. Counseling that does not attend to social justice issues risks further harm to folks who are already harmed by the -isms expressed individually, communally, systemically.