Trauma is the lasting response that impacts you psychologically, emotionally, and physically after a distressing event. Complex trauma comes from multiple exposures to various traumas over time. Both can impact your nervous system and body’s ability to cope. Trauma can play a major role in why you behave, think, and feel the way you do. Sometimes processing feelings or changing your thinking patterns isn’t possible at first, if you haven’t addressed your nervous system.

Have you ever felt like you were working on yourself, but suddenly reacted out of intense emotion and felt out of control instantaneously? Or you deeply struggle to cope with stress and hard feelings? You are not alone, you may be responding from a fight-flight-freeze-fawn response developed from the past. I will teach you about trauma responses, help you learn about your own, identify your window of tolerance for stress and cover other polyvagal theories of trauma impacting the body to help you feel safe in the present. We will work on developing skills to self-regulate and ground in the present moment, learn about any triggers, and use somatic strategies for healing the nervous system.

Whether it’s from unmet needs, attachment ruptures, one time traumatic events, multiple exposures to or chronic trauma that leads to CPTSD, or systemic and macro trauma. These can all impact your sense of self. Through therapy, we will work to get you back in touch with who you are and trust the world around you again. Research shows you don’t have to go over your trauma narrative and share details for healing to take place, but I’m happy to go there after creating a safe environment. We can also use EMDR to reprocess memories, bring down the level of distress they bring, and improve your belief system associated.

Anxiety and/or depression can feel heavy and be exacerbated in a world full of stressors.

Anxiety can look like:

-Worry, or thinking about the future and what ifs

-Irritability, uneasiness, sense of doom

-Panic, fear, perceiving danger

-Stomach aches, headaches, tension in chest, nausea

-Struggles with sleep, racing thoughts, appetite changes

-Shakiness, heart palpitations, sweating

Depression can look like:

-Emptiness, numbness, hopelessness

-Apathy, lack of motivation

-Loss of interest in things that brought you joy

-Fatigue, lethargy

-Difficulty sleeping or sleeping too much

-Weight changes, difficulty with self care

-Difficulty concentrating and making decisions

-Thoughts of self harm or suicidal ideations

I will support uncovering and learning where your anxiety or depression may come from, develop insight into triggers, and discover how it shows up physically and somatically.

We will work on decreasing rumination, worry, catastrophic thinking, or black and white thinking, learning to achieve balanced and nuanced thinking. We will develop foundations of mental health care and build healthy habits like quality sleep, nutrition, movement, stress management, and mindfulness skills. We will work together to find joy in your day, increase your self-care, and strengthen your support system. We will increase your coping skills to add to your toolbox, while providing the space to explore and actually feel your difficult feelings. If you are seeing a psychiatrist, taking any medications, or have chronic health conditions, I will work collaboratively with your other providers to ensure the best treatment and support.

Struggling with your self-worth makes it hard to show up in a social world. You may find yourself being extremely self-critical, never feeling good enough, doubting your worth, judging yourself, and not believing in yourself. Maybe you struggle to trust yourself. Sometimes it shows up in the choices you make, never taking care of yourself and honoring what you need. Maybe you are always pushing yourself to do more or to be better, never feeling like you can just relax or accept where you are at.

Together we will tap into your strengths, build self-trust and self-acceptance and unpack any negative core beliefs shaping your experience. We will work together to change the negative critical voice in your head to a more compassionate, kind voice. We can pinpoint where this inner-critic came from. We will develop your self-compassion skills to give you tangible ways to treat yourself better.

The goal is to shake any self-judgement to acceptance and to learn who you are. Learning what your hobby’s are, identify your values, your needs, and make sure your actions, choices, and behaviors align with who you want to be to become your best self. We can hold both a want to accept ourselves, with action toward change at the same time.

Recovery and sobriety from alcohol use is working to build a life where you don’t need to drink anymore. I do not judge nor push full sobriety unless I believe clinically needed, so if you are interested in working on your relationship with alcohol regardless of how you identify (addict, alcoholic, sober curious, whatever), I am here to help.

Sober curiosity is a term where someone is just questioning their relationship with alcohol and does not have to mean there is a commitment to an alcohol free or sober lifestyle. It also does not mean you have to believe theres a major issue with alcohol, you may just want to cut back for physical and mental health reasons.

Alcohol and other substances provides a short term relief. You think it’s decreasing stress and anxiety, calming your nerves, making you more fun, but really it’s numbing you out, allowing you to escape, and just makes you have to face the problems you meant to leave behind, tomorrow and sometimes with more.

Using alcohol to cope meets a need so we need to acknowledge that. Often unmet needs, pain, traumas, or attachment injurys are behind the initial pull. We will explore where your relationship with alcohol came from, how it has served you and not served you, and how to build a life without it. We will learn what your triggers and cravings are and find new ways to replace the urge.

If mindful drinking and decreasing use, without total sobriety is for you, I am happy to support that. I do not believe in rigidity, shaming, or one size fits all. Though, sometimes full sobriety is easier because it takes that choice away. I will share my clinical and professional impressions and support you either way. If you are sober curious and just interested in learning more and exploring your relationship with alcohol and would like some resources and tips, read my latest blog.

Codependency in relationships goes beyond just depending on the other person (read more in my latest blog to learn more about it).

If you struggle with any of the following you may be experiencing codependency symptoms and patterns:

-People pleasing, saying yes when you mean no

-Lacking boundaries or struggling with setting/maintaining them

-Frequently neglecting your own needs/wants/desires or not knowing what they are

-Taking on responsibility for people's emotions and issues

-Trying to "fix" others or solve their problems

-Chronic caregiving and losing yourself in the process

-Building up resentment. frustration, or anger

-Difficulty communicating in direct ways, often being passive aggressive or passive

-Experiencing excessive shame and guilt

-Lacking in self-identity or low self-esteem

-Lack of self care and often feeling emotionally exhausted

-Getting your worth from others validation or helping others

-Difficulty asking for help and pretending things are okay

-Conflict avoidance and discomfort speaking up

In therapy, we will unpack where these behaviors started and how they show up in the present. Often they stem from having a family member or being in a relationship with someone with mental health issues, addiction, emotional immaturity, or narcissism. Or if you found yourself taking on caregiving roles or adult-like responsibilities at a young age.

We will work on developing the skills to know how to set, maintain, and follow through on healthy boundaries. We will begin to finally take care of you instead of overly focusing on others.

We will break those rescuing and fixing tendencies, address lingering shame and guilt, we will build up your self-worth so you can feel you can truly rely on yourself and trust yourself.

If you did have a family member or relationship with someone deeply struggling or narcissistic, we will work on healing any trauma that has left an impact. We will discover the ways you had to keep yourself safe and protected to get by.

The goal is to not need that worth to come from others validation or sense of purpose from helping them. We will work on communicating better with others and learn to speak up for and articulate your needs. If you’re unsure what your needs are which often happens within codependency, we will identify your needs, values, and wants. We will spend time getting to know and learn who you are and build your identity.

You will learn how to finally let go of responsibility of other people’s emotions, issues, and detach with love so you can show up better for them in the long run.

The goal of healing codependency isn’t total independence; it’s interdependence. We are social beings and we need human connection. The goal is to maintain a sense of self, and hold relationships without compromising and losing yourself in the process.

It’s time you finally start taking care of you, you deserve it despite what your inner-critic may say!

As a parent, it can be terrifying to see your teen struggling whether in school, at home, or behind closed doors. With the pressures and responsibilities at school, socializing, and juggling technology and social media use, your teen is under more stress than ever before. Self esteem is lower than ever, anxiety, depression, stress, and sleep issues are up. It’s a tough world to navigate alone. Having a safe space for them to open up and be heard is important.

If your teen is struggling with any of the following:

-Effects of trauma & PTSD

-Anxiety, Depression, & other mood disorders

-Self Harm & low self-esteem

-Anger & emotional dysregulation

-Substance use & misuse

-School stressors & avoidance

-Relationship & boundary difficulties

I am here to support. The above may be manifestations of mental health challenges & trauma and it is important your teen is getting the support needed.

I will bring my DBT, EMDR, or mindfulness training and approaches, however the therapeutic relationship is most important when working with teens and I will make sure that we take the time to build trust. I will ask the teen client I am working with, what they are open to and will never push therapy tools unless I think they would truly benefit and like it.

Creating that environment to be able to open up and be vulnerable is key to any change. I want to make sure therapy is actually a fun space, which I have seen is possible, a time where your teen can just be and not feel judged.

I will also include the parent in the treatment plan and process, while upholding the teens confidentiality and trust. Parent coaching is an important piece of this equation and I will reach out to you every 4-6 weeks depending on clinical need. If your teen is open to joint sessions, we can talk together as a team.

Life as a whole is full of ups and downs, changes, transitions, and stressors. We have work responsibilities, school, relationships to maintain, all while trying to take care of ourselves. It can get hard to juggle it all.

Stress often impact us emotionally, behaviorally, physically, and psychologically. And when stress goes unmanaged and remains chronic, it can lead to burn out and emotional exhaustion.

If you are feeling emotionally exhausted, you are losing interest in things you love, have less motivation than before, struggling with sleep, and starting not to care, you may actually be burnt out.

If you are going through a life transition, experiencing chronic stress, or burnt out we will talk about what’s going on for you, how it’s impacting your life, and find ways to manage and decrease the stress or burn out. We will begin developing daily practices of self-care and small habits that can make your responsibilities, work, or school more sustainable. We can work on the thinking patterns keeping you stuck and develop skills through somatic practices to get some of the stress out of your body.

And lastly, even if you don’t identify with any particular mental health concerns, you are human which means you have feelings and something to bring to therapy. We will explore what’s going on for you and develop new ways to cope, manage, and discover ways to better yourself.

These are just a few of the various needs and challenges I work with. These are just ideas for a foundation. However, we will always individualize treatment together. You may not resonate with what is written above, we will discuss what is going on for you and what your goals and hopes are for therapy in our first session.