Approach to Therapy & Values

Approach to Therapy

I am a wounded healer and psychology found me. As humans do, my mind, brain, and nervous system have been shaped by life experiences with family, historical events, generational attitudes, and the dynamics of privilege and oppression.

I am an eclectic psychologist and approach each client in a compassionate, holistic, person-centered way using evidence-based interventions tailored to their needs. My theoretical foundation is informed by interpersonal neurobiology (IPNB), which emphasizes how interpersonal relationships impact the wiring of our brains and create mental maps that drive our behavior. Thus, a person’s neurobiology, significant relationships across the lifespan, and sociocultural context interplay to create a person’s story. My therapy approach is about helping clients revise the unhelpful parts of their life story. To make these revisions, we become historians by looking at their personal history and the sociohistorical events impacting society.

I am deeply invested in the ongoing struggle for social justice for vulnerable and historically excluded groups of people. I also ground my work in liberation psychology, intersectionality, and the minority stress frameworks to acknowledge a person’s lived experiences with oppression. Peoples’ lived experiences have often told me more than published research captures.

Values

I strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all living creatures. I draw the line with people who cannot be reasoned with, purposefully distort reality, and/or exploit others for their own self-interests. This is more important than ever, as 2025 “America” is descending into very dark times.

I value nature in its beauty, diversity, and complexity that exist on different spectrums, rather than force them into binary categories. Life is nuanced, not black and white. People are flawed and that is our humanity.

I value science over unchanging belief systems and opinions that are treated as fact. I value books, documents, and information that are subject to revision for the common good, not just certain groups of people. I believe the freedoms of others should be respected and not infringed upon by systems of power that dehumanize us all.

I strongly believe in the right to bodily autonomy and that one’s body is sacred. No other person or system with power should make decisions about your body. I root for the underdog; believe sex work is work; that health care should be universal and accessible by all; and, in the words of the poet Emma Lazarus, “Until we are are all free, we are none of us free” (1883).

Stay tuned for revisions!  

Version 5.12.25