When we work together, we are equals in relationship. I may have therapeutic training, but I am just another human being. You are, therefore, the expert of your own life experience, and I am both a witness and a guide in our relationship.
Neuroscience informs us that the psyche is always pushing toward the integration of experience. So even when we become submerged in traumatic stress, our minds are working with us, rather than against us. We can trust the psyche's process throughout the healing work that we do.
Humans are not broken, and as a therapist, my job is never to fix another person. Fixing isn't possible for a reason, and that reason reflects the wholeness of each individual, independent of the trauma experienced. Trauma doesn't break people, but it does challenge them. It's important that we establish this wisdom in our work together.
As an inclusive and affirming therapist, all races, ethnicities, genders, and sexual orientations are welcomed and celebrated in my care. Identity shaming is not tolerated in my life or within my practice.
In recovery, we need to experience processes that were chronically disrupted or disengaged from. Primarily, many survivors haven't had the experience of (or experienced very little of) being genuinely cared for, appreciated, and celebrated. Individuals may have only received care or cheerleading when and if they abided by dysfunctional rules or coercive control by perpetrators. In therapy, I believe it is your right to be authentically honored without performance.
My goal for our work together is to engage with the unconscious mind that holds onto unresolved trauma narratives, beliefs, and patterns. I believe that healing requires the facilitation of helping unconscious material become more conscious to the individual. In our work together, I will strive to help you uncover and release toxic stress that manifests as low self-esteem, inattentiveness, and disease.
While working collaboratively, I integrate therapies to authentically practice in the best way that I see fit per each unique individual and/or relational system, which makes me an integrative trauma therapist. I encourage deep internal reflection and processing that challenges programming and conditioning, attachment ruptures and unmet needs, dysfunctional intimacy and family-of-origin trauma, and complex trauma/dissociative symptoms.
While utilizing EMDR in sessions, I spend a lot of time in the resourcing phase helping clients make contact with their parts, understand their own neurology, and do rescue missions for young parts. This is a necessary process for clients with complex and developmental trauma. In this way, the length of treatment can be longer than some people want for it to while they're originally looking for EMDR sessions.
In my practice, resourcing work is necessary until I understand that the client's neurology has enough capacity for processing traumatic memories, and that this process is what may help them even further (Note: another important point for survivors to know is that processing traumatic memories isn't always necessary for their healing).
Some clients may request to work with me solely for Somatic Experiencing (SE), in which we tend to work less with words/narrative, and focus on the body and nervous system responses. SE is perhaps the most powerful and profound somatic trauma healing method that I have experienced both personally and professionally. Clients may also wish to incorporate other modalities with SE, such as sand tray therapy, or parts work modalities.
In treatment, I will spend time getting to know you, and/or yourself and your loved ones who will attend relational counseling. Together, we will determine your specific needs, longings, and pain points, and will work slowly and compassionately towards a future in which you and/or your relationships feel more resilient.