Professionally:

I’ve learned that whatever a person’s life experiences have been, they can be experienced as a crisis or a traumatic event when it exceeds the person’s capacity to cope. It is there where I like to come alongside and help the person sort out what is needed in order to heal and move forward in their life.

As a therapist, I take a strengths-based approach with clients by not only working to address the issues they are seeking treatment for, but also helping them to recognize and access their own resilience, abilities, and resources; using these to address present-day challenges that they face.

I utilize various therapeutic modalities depending on the person’s needs and goals for treatment, which can include EMDR, Narrative Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and others. My goal is to help people work through whatever pain they’re experiencing so that they can live in a manner that better supports their well-being and aligns with their values. This can look like helping a person process difficult life experiences in a more effective way in order to reduce the impact to them, teaching skills to grow the person’s ability to soothe and center themselves when feeling emotionally dysregulated or disconnected, and empathically challenging negative beliefs about themselves that do not reflect the full reality of who they are and their worth.

Professionally:

In my career I have worked in residential settings, outpatient, and Partial Hospitalization/Intensive Outpatient levels of care. I take a Person-Centered approach to therapy, so I act as a support and guide through the healing process. To work through unresolved trauma, I utilize Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and Mindfulness practices. These are evidenced-based tools that will allow you to become un-stuck and move forward with your goals. I also have a CADC-I and specialize in substance use disorders or co-occurring disorders. If you use alcohol or substances to cope with trauma or uncomfortable feelings, I will provide additional coping skills for relapse prevention.

Professionally:

Healing happens in the context of safe and secure relationships. For this reason, I seek to create an atmosphere of warmth, empathy, and acceptance that allows clients to improve their personal insight, grow in understanding of their relationships, identify personal needs and values, and “be with” their emotions, especially the ones that are experientially difficult. I’ve seen that building a strong therapeutic relationship can help people, often rather quickly, start to identify what changes they want for themselves; it’s such an honor for me to get to come alongside to assist and collaborate in this process.

Professionally:

My role as a therapist is to take a person-centered, strengths-based approach and provide my clients with a safe, accepting space for each client to explore their story and consider the next steps in their journey. I specialize in working with adults (18 and up) who have experienced trauma, are struggling with depression or anxiety, or are dealing with life transitions or existential questions around identity and purpose, and I work with clients to identify the therapeutic approaches and tools that they believe will be most effective for them to recover from past hurts and harms, make the changes they want for themselves, and create the meaning they want in their lives. As an integrative therapist, I draw from several different theories and modalities n this work, primarily strengths-and attachment-based humanistic talk therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Acceptance and
Commitment Therapy (ACT), mindfulness, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET), and motivational interviewing (MI). I earned my Master’s in Social Work from Portland State University in 2018 and spent two years in nonprofit management at the Sexual Assault Resource Center in Beaverton before transitioning into individual clinical work in 2020. Prior to and during my graduate studies, I worked and volunteered for nonprofit organizations providing services to survivors of domestic and sexual violence.

Professionally:

I returned to school in my early 40s to pursue a Master’s in Counseling. My undergraduate degree was in journalism. Both careers gave me the unique privilege of hearing the stories of people from all walks of life. As a therapist, I strive to be warm, authentic, collaborative, and approachable. I help clients navigate past experiences and current relationships, transitions, and other challenges. I also try to help clients cultivate a sense of hope while imagining the possibilities for the future. I enjoy incorporating ideas, tools, creativity, and even humor into the counseling process. I use EMDR, CBT, positive psychology, and ACT styles of therapy.

Professionally:

I learned that I not only enjoy but also have a knack for helping people while teaching yoga. I decided to combine this insight with my skills in the arts by seeking out training in art therapy at Southwestern College in Santa Fe, New Mexico where I earned a dual degree in art therapy and counseling. I am credentialed in the state of Oregon as a licensed professional counselor. My post-graduate training and clinical experience has focused on the treatment of trauma. I also have specialized experience working with altered states of consciousness and non-shared realities in residential and outpatient settings.

 I approach the healing process from a creative lens that often appeals to imagination and metaphor, and therapy with me can include art making when it enhances the therapeutic journey. My theoretical underpinnings include existentialism, post-modernism, and feminism, and they manifest in my delivery of services through privileging the discovery of meaning and purpose, multiple perspectives, and equity. I value collaboration in therapy, and I always start by honoring the dignity of each person I work with by reminding them that they are the experts on their own lives. I view my role as a therapist as walking along side them on their path to offer support and guidance through the rough patches. Guidance can come in the form of offering mindful and somatic skills for regulating the nervous system, cognitive behavioral strategies for managing the intensity of thoughts and feelings that in turn impact actions, corrective emotional experiences through exploring internal family systems and reprocessing trauma through bilateral stimulation (EMDR), and building momentum for change with solution-focused questions and motivational interviewing techniques.

Professionally:

I enlisted in the army in 2000 and served as a combat medic and mental health specialist. I first learned about neurofeedback early in my military career and it quickly became my area of focus. I am board certified through the BCIA and have spent the last 10 years working with soldiers, professional atheletes, and those working through attention deficits, PTSD, traumatic brain injury and addictions. For me, the possibilities of neurofeedback, and where it may lead us in our understanding of ourselves, is endless.