Therapeutic Modalities

Internal Family Systems.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is an evidence-based, non-pathologizing approach to understanding, honoring, and integrating our many inner parts. Through getting to know the various parts of ourselves, we can create greater harmony within, understand our own protective systems, and use our own innate depths of wisdom and compassion to heal our wounded and burdened younger parts.

In IFS, we will honor your own pace, seeking consent every step of the way. We may use creative techniques such as visualization, art, using objects or empty chairs to represent parts, as well as mindfulness and somatic awareness.

Sex Therapy.

Sex therapy uses a blend of skills and modalities in order to explore your own questions and goals in the realms of sexuality, embodiment, pleasure, connection, and intimacy. Whether you are exploring solo or with a partner(s), sex therapy is tailored to your own unique journey. Some folks seek sex therapy to better understand their own erotic map, to increase sexual communication skills, to work through sexual shame, or to deepen connection with themselves or with partners. Whatever your unique questions are, we will use a blend of affirming, creative therapeutic modalities to serve your explorations.

Sex therapy often involves aspects of resourcing, education, practices and experiments to try at home, mindfulness, and somatic awareness. It can also be combined with IFS.

The Developmental Model of Couples’ Therapy.

The Developmental Model (DM) is a practical, skills-based, compassionate approach to relationship therapy. DM focuses on building skills of differentiation, meaning: how well can you stay connected to yourself and your partner at the same time? By creating more robust skills of differentiation (including effective communication, active listening, autonomous goal-setting, and more), partners learn to maintain connection to their agency and sense of self, and offer greater understanding and empathy to their partner.

The Developmental Model is highly active, engaging, and practical. We will experiment with new ways of communicating, self-assessing after conflict, and identifying your own autonomous goals and values within the relationship.

I am also influenced by:

• existential therapy.

  Existential therapy centers your subjective experience, your process of meaning-making, and identifying your own values and beliefs. As storytelling creatures, we can claim agency in our lives through how we make meaning of what happens to us.

• somatic therapy.

  The field of somatics teaches us to listen to the wisdom of the body, bringing awareness to present-moment sensations in the body as a way to digest our lived experience. I may offer education about the nervous system, and offer practical suggestions for attuning to the body both in and out of session.

• decolonial therapy.

  Therapy exists within larger societal power structures and systems, meaning that we cannot divorce our lived identities from the therapy space. I will invite us to contextualize your personal, lived experience within these larger societal systems, considering gender socialization, racial identity, cultural norms, intergenerational trauma, and intergenerational resilience. I will engage questions of power, including how power shows up in the therapeutic relationship.

• mindfulness.

  Mindfulness is a broad term for any practice of cultivating nonjudgemental present-moment awareness. Practicing mindfulness is a deeply supportive skill to the therapeutic process, as it allows us to be with whatever is arising. Whatever is happening in the here and now of the therapy room is rich and vital— I will invite us to notice what is happening in the now.

• relational.

  Humans heal in connection, not in isolation. I bring my genuine self to the therapeutic relationship, and invite us to address our own relationship in the space.

• embodied.

  I believe that we are bodies in the room together, not just floating heads! By slowing down and getting curious about what’s arising in the present moment, we can create space to process and digest your felt experience. I will always trust your body to give us information about what’s happening and what may be needed.

• person-centered.

  You and your own goals set the agenda for therapy. We work together to discover your own values and use those as a compass for our therapeutic direction.

• non-pathologizing.

  I don’t believe that humans are problems to be fixed or solved. Even the parts of you causing pain or challenge have helpful intentions and wisdom worth understanding. When we can bring nonjudgmental, compassionate curiosity to these parts, space can start to open up, and often the parts become less extreme or distressing.

• developmental.

  Every single one of us is on a journey of growth and development. I see therapy as a place for us to learn together. The therapeutic process often deepens with time, as we learn more about you, your needs, and what is supportive and helpful in this space. Therapy is also a great place to learn and practice new skills, which often feel strange or unfamiliar because they’re new. Growing is uncomfortable, and I have deep respect and reverence for allowing ourselves to be messy, brave, and vulnerable. I am always developing, too!

• affirming.

  I firmly believe that there are as many healthy expressions of identity, sex, and relating as there are human beings. We do not fit neatly into categories, constructs, or binaries— nor do we need to! I am affirming of all gender, sexuality, relational, and kink identities, and believe that if all parties are practicing informed consent and no one is being harmed, there is no limit to the potential expressions of healthy sexuality.