HEALING WITH IFS

Internal Family Systems

Deep healing happens when your therapist is able to compassionately hold space for all that you think and feel, reflect your strengths back to you, and challenge you to grow outside of your comfort zone.

While I respond to clients' needs from a number of theoretical orientations, the main framework I work from is Internal Family Systems (IFS) because its description of the human psyche makes the most sense to me. I have witnessed deep and lasting transformation in clients who have healed years of trauma when they learn to embody Self energy and learn to work gently and compassionately with their parts (or the various aspects of their psyche).

COUPLES/RELATIONAL THERAPY

I love couples work because there are few things as poignant or precious as the love and vulnerability that people can experience in their intimate relationships once they have the tools and are able to open themselves to the possibilities of true connection. Trust, respect, honest and effective communication, intimacy, and fulfilling sexuality are just some of the areas we may work on in couples therapy.

FAMILY THERAPY

The relationships we have in our families define who we are. So much is learned and absorbed in the first few years of our lives, from childhood through adolescence to adulthood. Oftentimes as adults, we find or recreate the relationships we had within our families again and again until we have learned the lessons of healing whether they are lessons about power, identity, intimacy, or boundaries. My goal in working with families is to advocate for all members to discover their power and the truth about who they are so that they can relate to their family members from a place of self-knowledge and compassion.

GROUP THERAPY

Group therapy can be incredibly powerful and a source of profound support. There is great comfort in knowing that you are not alone, and there is relief when you are heard and held by people who understand what you have experienced because they have been through similar things themselves. Another deeply satisfying aspect of group therapy is that we practice healthy ways of being in community when we hold space for and support others.

Schedule an IFS session

ADDITIONAL HEALING MODALITIES

Support for your mind, body & spirit

TRAUMA-INFORMED YOGA

Conscious movement helps us reconnect with our physical self and work through unprocessed emotions stored in our bodies. A trauma-informed approach to yoga encourages practitioners to take the practice at their own pace and in a way that is most respectful of their bodies.

For the past 14 years, I have been teaching various forms of yoga, from vinyasa flow to restorative to prenatal yoga. I have taught week-long yoga and meditation retreats in Thailand and am able to tailor classes to whatever participants most need.

For me, yoga practice is a return to our true state of awareness, balance, and efficiency in movement and being. The practice of yoga is more than flowing with the breath--it is the conscious direction of our energies so that we are in flow with the universe.

MEDITATION & MINDFULNESS

One of the most powerful and life-changing antidotes to the stresses of modern life is the ability to sit with our thoughts, feelings, and sensations with self-compassion and without judgment.

Much, if not all, of the suffering we experience in our lives is a result of habitual mental and emotional patterns that, like wildly spinning wheels, keep spinning as long as we keep adding energy to them. Oftentimes we keep those wheels spinning because we are not aware of how we keep them going or we do not know how to stop. The good news is that our brains are able to change and form new connections in response to how we choose to use them, a quality known as neuroplasticity. As I have personally experienced in my meditation practice, it is possible to (re)train our brains to respond to the world in healthy ways.

There are many kinds of meditation, but as I see it, the practice of meditation is a returning home to who we really are: wise, centered, and compassionate beings. Most of us, growing up in this highly distracting, stimulating, and chaotic society and world, have lost touch with the single-minded simplicity and joy that is our true nature, but that is exactly where freedom and our power--not to mention relief--lie.

The benefits of meditation and mindfulness (the secular form of Buddhist meditation practices) are numerous: reduction of stress and resolution of ailments caused by stress, and increase in creativity, clarity, contentment, inner peace, and compassion for self and others. It all starts with one conscious breath. And then another one.

ENERGY HEALING

All humans are capable of energy healing though our ability to channel the universal energy of love varies depending on the state of our spiritual development. Like a pane of glass through which the sunlight shines, the clearer we are, the better we are able to access and channel universal life-force energy for the purpose of healing ourselves and assisting others in their healing.

Since 2007, I have been practicing and teaching all three levels of Tera Mai Reiki as a Tera Mai Reiki Master Teacher. My commitment to continual spiritual growth helps to ensure that I am a ready and useful conduit when I do energy work. This aspect of my being and practice informs everything I do.