My therapeutic approach is eclectic and integrates elements from person-centered therapy, body-centered therapy, expressive arts therapy, therapeutic horticulture, cognitive behavioral therapy, and dialectical behavior therapy.
Person-Centered Therapy
As a person-centered therapist, I believe you are the expert on your own life. My role in our relationship is to hold therapeutic space and offer genuine, unconditional, and nonjudgmental support as you forge your own path toward finding and embracing your authentic self.
Body-Centered Therapy
Body-centered therapy is an approach that joins talk therapy with somatic experience. It invites you to connect with your body's wisdom, increasing your awareness of the ways in which your body communicates through the language of physical sensations, impulses, and actions. Body-centered therapy also emphasizes that, while your body is a vital source of information, it is also the container for the healing process itself. Body-centered interventions that I often utilize include inviting folks to explore, identify, and express where and how in their body they experience emotions, memories, thoughts, and beliefs. Body-centered invitations might include mindfulness, grounding, and/or movement.
Therapeutic Horticulture
Therapeutic horticulture is a relatively new modality that relies on ancient wisdom. Being in direct contact with nature improves our cognitive functioning, our mood and sense of well-being, and our feelings of connectedness. By inviting clients to engage in horticultural tasks, I am inviting them to explore and apply to their own journey the lessons that nature teaches on hope, nurturance, perseverance, and resilience. Horticultural techniques I often employ include sowing seeds, propagating plants, and harvesting fruits.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) invites you to reflect on the core beliefs you hold about yourself, others, and the world; beliefs that often develop during early childhood in response to life events. When these core beliefs become distorted because of trauma or adversity, we filter information about our environment through a lens of automatic and unhelpful thoughts, beliefs, and interpretations. Perceiving events through an unhelpful lens impacts the emotions we experience and the behaviors we use to cope. Using the framework of CBT, I will help you unpack and process your distorted core beliefs, identify your automatic and unhelpful thinking patterns, and restructure your beliefs and thoughts in a way that offers you a greater sense of safety within yourself and contentment within the world.
Expressive Arts Therapy
People often assume that engaging in expressive arts therapy requires proficient and technical artistic skills, and that is actually not true! Expressive arts therapy emphasizes the process of creation rather than the aesthetic of the product. Expressive arts activities like drawing, painting, collage-making, and creative movement can help you communicate what is difficult to verbalize, can make the unconscious conscious, and can break through the defense mechanisms that keep you from making contact with your own emotional experience.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) teaches essential coping skills to reduce suffering, which include mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. DBT emphasizes the importance of both radically accepting yourself and your emotions and empowering yourself with coping strategies to recognize and effect the changes you wish to see in your life. Using a DBT framework, I will help you to understand the ways in which your environment has impacted your ability to self-regulate, increase your awareness that you are a worthy person deserving of peace, and provide you with tools to more effectively connect with and respond to your emotional and social needs.