About Me
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My Approach
Our Work Together
I see myself as a sort of human-tool—a partner— in your process of self-discovery and transformation. This work really only unfolds in relationship, and in many ways, that will be our core work. Together, we will partner to build a space where we can notice the invisible connections between your story and your current patterns, slowly creating the real change you desire—even if you don't have the words to articulate what that is just yet. (This is completely normal and a natural part of the process.)
Inevitably, moments arise in therapy where curiosity feels too risky, and fear tells us to turn back. This is where a trusting relationship with your therapist is especially vital. It serves as a safe container, letting fear have a place at the table without running the show, holding seemingly disparate parts of ourselves together, and enabling us to stay present enough to the process so that we can keep looking forward.
Ultimately, I will accompany you on your walk toward increased self-trust, so you may confidently make the choices you want and invest in the relationships you most desire. This work takes time, a good connection with your therapist, and radical courage to move with the currents of emotion that inevitably show up. It is important work—so important that we cannot undergo it alone.
The Roots of My Practice
Until my early twenties, I thought my life’s work was going to be writing. I wanted to tell stories about family, identity, and lineage. I was captivated by the prospect of words connecting me back to the grandfather I’d never met, of understanding why I and my family members functioned the way we did. I wanted to pull at a thread in my family history and watch my self-understanding unravel. I had high hopes that, in this process, I could help others better understand themselves, too.
Then, I was finally offered a formal writing gig, and I didn’t want it. The confusion rattled me. But that friction forced me to reflect, and I found a deeper desire: I didn’t just want to broodily document my story in a room by myself; I wanted to actively participate in self-discovery with others. I wanted to be in the room with people living their stories. I felt a nudge to co-authorship, a sort of midwifery, a service that, admittedly, wasn’t entirely self-less but wasn’t just about me either. Perhaps this was a call to mutual story-writing.
To the surprise of my younger self, I turned down the writing job and took a position supporting first-generation students who were navigating sudden job losses. My official role was practical—to coach them in professional skill-building and help them gain employability, but I quickly ran into the limits of that approach. No amount of resume-building or clerical skill practice could touch the sense of failure or the complex family crises the students were holding. They taught me the absolute insufficiency of fixing surface behaviors. And a thought wouldn't leave me alone: Dealing only with skills and behaviors isn’t helping; I think we all want to dig to our roots.
So, I decided to become a therapist.
Every Problem is a Human Problem.
My path eventually led me to practice extensively throughout the field of community mental health. I have accompanied unhoused couples and families, child and adolescent survivors of abuse, pregnant and parenting youth, and first-generation high school students. All have schooled me deeply in trauma, neurobiology, and relational health.
But more than anything, sitting in the room with people facing such vastly different, often devastating circumstances taught me that we are all operating under the exact same human architecture. Beneath the unique details of every story, the same foundational undercurrents were there: Who am I? How do I love and be loved? How do I survive this?
My time in the therapist chair has overwhelmingly shown me one thing: every problem is a human problem.
We so often identify with our various ways of self-protecting, our anxieties, our disruptive quirks, our overthinking, and even the circumstances we find ourselves in, accepting them as proof of our defectiveness. But I have come to see these as much more accurate proof of our vitality, as deeply intelligent, natural, and creative attempts to stay alive in complex and harsh environments.
This is exactly why therapy works. Although we may feel like we’re malfunctioning, we are often operating exactly as designed. And good design requires good maintenance. In fact, healing or repair of any kind really only works if the raw material being worked with is good.
This is my paradigm: humans are made very good. Beneath layers of survival and pain lies an original blueprint—one that is whole, intelligent, and inclined towards life in abundance.
But it is nearly impossible to recall our own goodness in isolation. Therapy, when it’s a good enough fit, provides a mirror that shines clearly enough so that you can finally really see yourself, polished up. This wouldn’t work on inherently bad or irreparable material; no amount of “polishing up” would help.
It works because our universal human foundation is good. And worth sitting with.