Let’s talk about the elephant in the room

I am a licensed Mental Health therapist with twenty-five years of experience counseling individuals, couples, families, and adolescents. 

I have a special interest in neuroscience and attachment theory in the context of helping individuals cope and heal from stress, trauma, and grief. I am also passionate about assisting people in developing healthy, authentic relationships, and in carving out their own unique life course. 

My approach

For individuals, couples and families, I combine natural curiosity, intuition, and learned modalities such as Family Systems, Somatic Therapy, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to create a stimulating and healing environment. I believe that humor, use of metaphor, imagination, and playfulness (trying on new hats or changing patterns) can be a part of a productive therapeutic relationship.

As a couples therapist, I combine Family Systems, Gottman Techniques (Level 1), and PACT techniques (Level 1), and I have years of experience treating families and couples. I am a firm believer that relationships can thrive when partners continue to be curious about one another and have a growth mind-set.

I am willing to include partners, family members or friends of my individual clients, if we mutually agree that it will be beneficial to their individual therapeutic progress.

I am trained in many different modalities, and I am continuing to expand my knowledge and practice to include Internal Family Systems and Ketamine-Assisted Therapy.

I take a collaborative approach to my work and consider therapy a partnership. I use a psychodynamic lens when considering the relationship between myself and my clients, and I believe that each relationship is special and important, and a therapeutic opportunity.

We start with family of origin. It is important for me to learn about a person’s childhood and family of origin, so that we can notice patterns and habits that originated early. Many coping mechanisms adopted to survive a challenging or misaligned childhood may no longer be serving a person in adulthood. We can look at this together and create new behaviors and relationships that better fit one’s current experience. Learning about your attachment style(s) is also beneficial in improving adult relationships.

Focus areas

Life issues and services

Together, we work to address a range of life issues and services, which may include:

Managing stress
Depression and anxiety
Couples counseling
Marriage and family counseling
LBGTQ+ support
Men’s issues
Adolescence and parenting adolescents
Pregnancy and postpartum depression
Early parenting
Sexuality
Trauma
Grief
Terminal illness
Addiction and harm reduction
Chronic illness
Professional consultation

Therapeutic approaches

We work together to determine productive therapeutic approaches to life issues. These may include:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Solution Focused Therapy
Family systems
Internal Family Systems
Emotional Focused Therapy
Somatic Transformational Therapy
Harm reduction/addiction recovery
Attachment theory and exercises
Mindfulness
Psychedelic integration
Spiritual exploration

I have lived in the Pacific Northwest for most of my life and greatly appreciate the bounties that the Puget Sound has to offer. 

Before starting private practice in 2012, I worked in adult community mental health and crisis residential centers for teenagers. I completed post-graduate training at Group Health (now Kaiser Permanente) and Seattle Children’s Hospital. 

I also raised a family, and have three young adult children who keep me on my toes, as well as two dogs and cats. I strive to maintain a good work/life balance, which includes friendships, family, racquet sports, writing, and photography. 

About me

Education
and recent training

I hold a Masters degree in Counseling from Bastyr University, with an emphasis in Family Systems Therapy.

In 2023 I completed “Treating Complex Trauma with IFS,“ a week-long training program with Dr. Frank G. Anderson. 

In 2017 I completed a 10-day training retreat with Gabor Maté. Our group’s purpose was to assist one another in our own deep inner process in order to effectively assist others  in healing early childhood trauma, PTSD, grief,  and addictive behavior.

In 2015 I completed an 18-month post-graduate training in Somatic Transformation, which explores and treats the physiological and psychological effects of complex traumatic experiences.

In 2014 I completed a year-long leadership certification program, Generating Transformative Change, through Saybrook University/Pacific Integral.