About

I see therapy as a combination of science, sociocultural awareness, professional experience, and a collaborative artform. My interventions are guided by what science has proven about successful mental health treatment, how the human mind, body, and brain work, and what is known about societies, cultures, and communities. The more and more I learn directly from my experiences helping clients, the more I incorporate what I anecdotally know works.

Combining what I learn from readings, trainings, and professional experience, I feel in rhythm and in a playful state with my clients, like two dancers, improv actors, or jazz musicians. That, in my belief and professional experience, creates the most healing moments I can be a part of as a therapist. I find them incredibly rewarding, moving, and a sign that the therapy is going in the right direction.

Master of Social Work, California State University, Sacramento       2014 – 2016
Emphasis: community mental health for adults & children;
Thesis Topic: Sexual Identity-Focused Therapy

Bachelor of Arts in Film & Media, University of California, Santa Barbara       2004 – 2008
Awarded outstanding graduate honors, voted upon by program faculty.

• Somatic IFS Retreat – 7 day experiential training led by Somatic IFS founder Susan McConnell, January 2023.
• Self-led Grief – 2 day advanced intensive course on practicing IFS for grieving, run by IFSCA, June 2022.
• Stepping Out – 16 week, 48 hour intensive course for gay male therapists on practicing IFS run by IFSCA, September 2021 to December 2021.
• The Further Reaches of IFS – 2 day advanced intensive course on practicing IFS run by IFSCA, June 2021.
• IFS Skills and Competence Intensive – 4 day intensive course on how to practice IFS run by IFSCA, May 2021.

About my approach

I am trained and experienced in helping people to drop into, explore, and connect with their own psyche.

What does connecting with your psyche mean? Although each person derives their own meaning and experience from connecting with their own psyche, from a scientific perspective, connecting to one’s own psyche means accessing a neural pathway in the brain that connects us to feelings of safety, connectivity, receptivity, and nurturing. From a spiritual perspective, it is accessing a place of unconditional love for yourself and others.

Dipping into your psyche can look many different ways. Most often, we begin with whatever you feel needs attention that day, and, from there, direct your attention to what’s happening in your psyche in relation to the topic being explored. I might ask questions about where the feeling or thought is in your body, what it looks like, and what your experience of it is like. We then explore its relationship to you, how you feel towards it, and what it wants or needs you to know in that moment.

This method is called Internal Family Systems (IFS), a highly effective evidence-based therapy.  IFS operates under the assumption that our  psyche is geared toward healing in the same way that our skin regenerates when we have been physically wounded. I see this work as accessing our psyche’s natural restorative abilities. Not only is it deep, powerful, and healing work, it is seen in the mental health community as one of the most effective treatments for PTSD, attachment wounds, and childhood trauma. IFS can be used for practically any concern including anxiety, depression, panic, relationship issues, and physical health issues.