Background and Approach
My history and training is in traditional psychotherapy, somatic psychology, trauma, and mindfulness. I approach psychotherapy from a body-led orientation, with the practice of mindfulness and the science of interpersonal neurobiology informing my presence in session. I have found that the way we are together can effect profound change, recognized and held in the dyad between us. As Thich Nat Hanh says, we “inter-are”.
I do not practice hands-on work in my sessions, but all of my sessions are rooted in a respect for the body as a leader, for the body’s wisdom in never going too fast, for the stabilizing rhythms that you experience as a being in a body that give you clues about your needs, boundaries, and health. I also trust your body’s ability to center around health in the same way it sometimes centers around disturbance.
I am a believer in leaning in, in holding space for our emotions in radical and practical ways, in practicing the somewhat tedious work of meeting ourselves over and over again. I am here to support your self-regulation, your feeling of your own ability to hold yourself, your trust in your ability to live balanced. I am here to co-regulate, and here to affirm that healing is possible in a field of grounded, well-boundaried, practiced co-regulation. I am here to laugh, to rest down into alignment and lift up in spacious spreading and settling.
Practically, in any given session we will work on skills of mindfulness, somatic dialogue, interpersonal process, and identifying core needs and experiences underlying the cognitive stories we tell. We will work on boundaries, and sensing self. We will work on trauma in a way that releases the trauma patterns in the brain, and allows centering around health, repose, and resource.
That’s the most I know. Welcome.
Training and Education
Ed.S in Counseling Psychology
Licensed Professional Counselor, Virginia License #0701003686, Michigan License #6401223135, New Hampshire License #2599
23 years in practice
Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy
Vagus System Somatics
Somatic Experiencing
Developmental Needs Meeting Strategies (DNMS)
National Acupuncture Detoxification Protocol (NADA)
“This being human is tough stuff and one of the acute losses we all feel is that of meaningful friendship and community. That which our great, great ancestors took for certain: when a wounding befalls one of us, we are all implicated.
And so we lean in to support those in pain with our humble gifts of empathy and presence. We shoulder our unbearable questions together and we honor with ritual the devastating requirements and initiations that this being alive asks of us.”
Other Relevant information
I play guitar and sing, and wish I played fiddle, and play a wee bit of harmonica. I love to garden. I have two great kids who keep me humble for sure. I am more and more convinced, as I do my own work, that being less “capable” means being more available to self and others, somehow. I am less defended as the years go on, and more kind to myself. I am grateful to be here doing the work of seeing clearly, the great embrace.
