Counseling and psychotherapy for individuals, couples and families.
As a trauma-trained therapist, I guide adults through healing childhood trauma, sexual issues, and anxiety with humility and curiosity. Through therapy, we confront pain, refine self-perception, and uncover inner wisdom for authentic living.
Narcissistic Abuse Recovery
If you’ve been in an abusive relationship, it can be tempting and natural to focus on the behaviors of your partner. However, the reality is that you chose them; and without insight into the factors that influenced your decision, you are likely to repeat the cycle and choose the same person again and again. The abuse was not your fault, and you did not deserve it. In therapy, we will work together to heal from your experiences, and to calibrate a healthy sense of self to improve your self-awareness and self-esteem. It is through a strong and healthy relationship with self that we can experience a fulfilling life with fulfilling relationships with others. In addition to accomplishing your therapeutic goals, my goal is to help you grow to love and trust yourself in your pursuit of the life you want to live.
Trauma (Childhood & Sexual)
Complex trauma is different than what has historically been widely understood as trauma. It isn’t necessarily one major event, but rather a series of repeated experiences that over time, detach those who experience it further from their true selves. It can be the result of neglect, abuse (witnessed or experienced), exposure to mental health challenges, and exposure to other stressors during the formative years of life (childhood). The primary instinct in all of us from an early age is survival. To survive trauma, one must adapt to their environment, abandoning the true self. My approach to trauma is to create the safety necessary to explore it and to walk with you through it to discover who you truly are, independent of those experiences. It is through this exploration that you can recover the parts of you that still exist and incorporate them into your daily life.
Anxiety
Anxiety is the state of worrying about things that have yet to happen. It can be an unconscious source of distress, and because many of us have existed in an anxious state since childhood; it feels natural. In relationships, anxiety can manifest as self-isolation or over-performance. Examples of over-performance are overthinking, over-explaining, people pleasing, etc. With time, these behaviors can result in unbearable suffering. Together, we will work on identifying how anxiety manifests in your body and heal anxious triggers with the goal of becoming more intentional about how you show up for yourself in relationships.
Young Adult Transitions
Young adulthood is a pivotal time in our lives; it is during this phase of life that many people make decisions that will have a lifelong impact, including career and relationship choices. The challenge is that many young adults have limited experiences and have only the messages from their childhood as a reference for their decision-making. Therapy will help you to explore the potential conflicts between family upbringing and individual preferences, to achieve clarity of authenticity, and to navigate the transition from seeing your parents as parents to seeing them as humans.
Sex & Sex Related Issues
Sex can be one of life’s greatest pleasures, greatest disappointments or somewhere in between. Fulfilling sex is a right that is afforded to us all, yet fulfilling sex means something different to us all. If you find there is a barrier between you and sexual fulfillment, sex therapy is a forum by which you can explore your beliefs, experiences, and approach to sex to overcome the challenges you are facing. Like our speech and appearance, sex is a form of self-expression; sex therapy provides you with the opportunity to explore and refine how you do sex.
Couples
As an EFT-trained therapist, I believe that one of the greatest challenges in relationships in general is vulnerability (openly asking for what you want). In fact, many of us have built walls of protection around our pain to the degree that the thing we really want is inaccessible to the person(s) we want it from. In intimate relationships, this can create confusion and distress because the fights that ensue, at their core, are deeper than what lies on the surface; all roads lead back to vulnerability. In couples therapy, we will explore your individual pains so that you become clear about what it is you really want and articulate it to your significant other. My goal is to help the two of you to understand yourselves and each other better to improve your relationship.
Let's Talk
The first step in getting to the other side is making a connection. Let's find a time to discuss where you desire to be.
- Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (#143151)
- Associate Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (#15245)
- Supervised by Matthew Shima, LMFT (#113018)
