About Me
ABOUT
Approach to Therapy
When all parts of you are welcomed, seen, and appreciated, it frees you up to be your most authentic self in our work together.
A Welcoming Experience
I am a queer and trans therapist committed to providing person-centered care. My specialities include ADHD, anxiety, and depression. I also frequently work with OCD, trauma, and autism. I am grounded in the social frameworks of neurodiversity, body neutrality, HAES (Health at Every size), and disability justice. Many of my clients come to me because they need a provider who is LGBTQIA-affirming, kink, polyamory, or sex-worker friendly, and knowledgeable about chronic illness.
If you’re a member of any of these communities, you probably know how challenging it can be to find a therapist who truly “gets it”. I offer an environment where all of these parts of you can be welcomed, seen, and appreciated. This frees you up to be your most authentic self in our work together, and for us to focus on what matters most to you in therapy.
I believe in the power of a genuine and non-judgmental therapeutic relationship as a jumping-off point for meaningful change. I love to help people navigate painful emotions, build a more compassionate inner voice, understand their unconscious motivations, find strategies to navigate their unique neurotype, and develop safer and more fulfilling relationships.
Therapeutic Modalities
Therapy isn't one-size-fits-all
I am an “eclectic therapist,” which means that I draw from a number of different therapeutic modalities and tailor my approach to the person in front of me. My core modalities are Humanistic, Psychodynamic, and Relational psychotherapy.
Depending on the needs of the client in front of me, I also incorporate elements of Feninist Therapy, Motivational Interviewing, Somatic psychotherapy, Inferential-Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (I-CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), and Internal Family Systems (IFS).
Humans are wonderfully unique and there is no one-size-fits-all approach that works for every client. I draw from a broad tool belt of clinical skills, lived experience, and community knowledge. I collaborate with clients to identify which therapeutic approaches work best for them, so that you can retain choice and autonomy throughout the therapeutic process.
Research suggests that the most important factor in effective therapy is the relationship between the therapist and the client, not just which style of therapy is used. My goal is to build a trusting, authentic relationship with safe consistent boundaries that will be the foundation of our work together, regardless of the approaches we end up using.
I bring my skills and experience, but you are the expert on your own life. I believe in your strength and resilience and I'm here to help you reach your goals.
Humanistic Therapy
My core therapeutic approach is Humanistic Therapy (also known as Person-Centered or Rogerian therapy). This approach is anti-authoritarian and collaborative. It is built on the idea that YOU are the expert on your own life. You decide what direction you want to go, and I collaborate with you to explore those paths.
My role is as a compassionate, non-judgemental facilitator, helping you to find answers within yourself. I am not an expert coming down from on high to tell you how you “should” live your life. My purpose is to walk beside you and use my clinical skills to help you develop a compassionate inner voice that guides you far beyond our work together.
A key aspect of this approach is empathy and what we call “unconditional positive regard”. When I see someone engage in behavior that is destructive (to self or others), my instinct is to approach things with curiosity and warmth. We are complex creatures driven by so many subconscious and environmental factors, and my job is to try to help you understand what is at play. Not to judge, condemn, or shame you.
I believe that sustainable change is most possible when we feel understood and when we have people in our lives who regard us in a positive, consistent way, even when we are imperfect, struggling, or in conflict.
Strengths based therapy involves shining a light on your strengths, resources, and resilience.
Strengths-based
Humanistic therapy also takes a strengths-based approach. This involves shining a light on your strengths, resources, and resilience. Even in our lowest moments when we feel as though we are doing everything “wrong”, there are often hidden strengths at play.
For example, maybe you engaged in a risky coping mechanism to get through a stressful situation. You could frame that in terms of “shame” and “failure”; OR we could use it as a way to understand the creativity and motivation you used to survive that situation. By noticing your strengths, we can build on them to help you manage your stressors in new ways.
Psychodynamic & Relational Therapy
Psychodynamic and Relational therapies make great companions. Psychodynamic therapy focuses on your inner world and unconscious motivations, while Relational therapy focuses on your external world and your connection with others. Pyschodynamic therapy is helpful in understanding why you are the way you are and what drives your thoughts, feelings, and actions. Relational therapy helps you practice who you want to become and how you wish to engage with others.
Psychodynamic therapy focuses on curiosity and insight. Together, we explore your unconscious patterns, early life experiences, traumas, defense/coping mechanisms, and other hidden internal processes that drive behavior. Deeply understanding the "why" helps you to connect the dots and better recognize and change the patterns that are no longer working for you. It also creates a strong foundation for other therapeutic modalities, helping us to create a treatment plan that is truly tailored to you.
As a Relational therapist, I see the therapeutic relationship itself as a site of practice, growth, and healing. Like in any relationship, the therapeutic relationship is a place where we act out our social patterns. One of the riches sources of information in a therapy session is how we engage with each other. When do you hold back? When do you seek approval or reassurance? When do you diminish your pain? In Relational therapy, I can name those moments and talk about what is happening in real time. Which, in turn, can help you develop stronger social-emotional skills for the outside world.
Other Therapeutic Modalities
Being a therapist is kind of like taking a pop quiz every day- we never know what emotional state a client may arrive in, or what their needs may be. Having a broad toolbelt to draw from helps me be as prepared as I can to address a wide spectrum of issues that can arise for clients. These are some of the modalities I draw from outside of my core modalities of Humanistic, Psychodynamic, and Relational Therapies.
Feminist Therapy- This approach to therapy focuses on how the personal is political. Together we analyze your relationship to the systems around you, ranging from your family all the way up to society and the government. Through this lens, I see your struggles in the context of the world that is impacting and influencing you every day.
Motivational Interviewing- This modality comes from the world of addiction treatment. MI is a collaborative and goal-oriented approach that strengthens your own motivation for change by exploring and resolving ambivalence. It is centered around acceptance, self-compassion, and empowerment.
Somatic Psychotherapy- Somatic means of the body. This approach focuses on how our emotions manifest and process through the physical sensations of our body. Through increased awareness and gentle movement, it can help us to restore a sense of safety in the body.
Inferential- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy- This approach, engineered for OCD, focuses on the doubts that feed obsessional loops. It is a more structured therapeutic approach that targets "inferential confusion". In other words, the minds confusion about which data is relevant to the here and now, and which data only feels relevant to the anxious obsessive brain.
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy- This modality was originally developed for Borderline Personality Disorder, and overlaps significantly with the non-religious practice of Zen Buddhism. It's core teachings are about finding balance between acceptance and change, practicing mindfulness, tolerating distress, regulating emotions, and building interpersonal effectiveness.
Internal Family Systems- IFS began as a useful framework for dissociative disorders, but can be used to understand the separate emotional "parts" that we all experience to some degree. IFS views the psych as composed of multiple "parts" that are each trying to do a job, though sometimes a bit clumsily. It is often compared to the movie Inside Out, where different emotional states can be understood as individual parts acting upon the brain.
I find that incorporating elements of these additional modalities enriches my core modalities and allows me to adapt to a broad spectrum of client needs, diagnoses, and personalities. We are all so unique. My goal is to find the blend that resonates with you.
You are a whole, complex human being in an equally complex environment,
not just a cluster of symptoms.
Non-pathologizing therapy
Another significant aspect of my therapeutic framework is a non-pathologizing, holistic approach. This involves viewing clients as whole, complex human beings in an equally complex environment, rather than just as a cluster of symptoms. In contrast, a pathologizing approach views clients as a collection of deficits and abnormalities that are part of an individual problem separate from society.
Diagnoses from the DSM (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) can be very useful for self-understanding, finding community, and accessing resources. However, the DSM is just one lens through which to view human behavior, and it is a lens that is constantly shifting based on things like politics, culture, profit, and resource distribution (which shape each update of the DSM).
In my work with clients, we make use of diagnosis when it is helpful, and make use of other lenses when it's not helpful. Part of using a non-pathologizing approach is also recognizing that therapy and psychiatry are not the only tools that can improve mental health. Systemic social change, access to material and social resources, fulfilling and transformative experiences, meaningful relationships with nature/animals/other people, joyful body movement, and so many more things can positively shape our mental well-being outside of the therapy room.
About Me
I believe deeply in every client's ability to grow, change, and heal from painful experiences.
Education
I began my education in Critical Race, Gender, and Sexuality studies at Mills College in Oakland, CA. I loved what I was learning, but I wanted to take that knowledge out of the inaccessible world of academia and apply it to a career where I could be of service to others directly.
I left Mills College and turned my attention towards completing a bachelor’s degree in Social Work at CSU Los Angeles. I began working in the mental health field in 2017. After completing my BSW at CSULA, I graduated with my master’s in Social Work (MSW) from CSU Long Beach in 2019.
There are many educational paths to becoming a therapist, including degrees in counseling, marriage & family therapy, psychology, and more. I chose a social work path because I believe that social systems have a huge impact on our lives. I find therapy is most effective when we actually acknowledge and work with the realities of social injustice, instead of pretending that everything can be fixed with individual reflection and growth alone.
Career
Prior to becoming a therapist, I worked in youth-focused community programs between 2005-2015. I had the chance to work with several LGBTQIA+ arts-based initiatives where we created space for collective healing, peer support, and mentorship. While in school, I worked as a Social Justice Peer Educator and provided workshops and individual mentorship related to queer and trans rights, disability justice, white privilege, fat liberation, and more.
I began my career in mental health in 2017. I have been lucky to work in a variety of settings where I received training in different therapeutic approaches. I've worked in private practice, schools, field-based community mental health, and acute inpatient services.
Today I am lucky to work one-on-one with my wonderful clients. Many of my clients come from marginalized communities, and many have struggled to find therapists who are culturally attuned or who share their worldview. It's an absolute joy to get to be of service to so many people from my disabled, neurodiverse, fat, polyamorous, sex worker, and LGBTQIA+ communities.
Who I am
I am a Southern California-based therapist, educator, and artist. My work is informed by clinical education, lived experience, and community knowledge. I am proud to be a therapist who is disabled, fat, neurodivergent, polyamorous, queer, trans, and part of the kink community.
In my free time, I paddleboard, do aerial arts, craft, and write music. You can usually find me in the middle of a DIY project or playing with my two rescue cats (Myra and Thistle) who are fond of making guest appearances in online therapy sessions.
My beliefs
Some people believe therapists should always be a blank slate. I think there can be value in knowing where your therapist stands on issues that are important to you. I share these things not because I need my clients to agree with me, but because I know how hard it can be to find a therapist who shares your beliefs and how devastating it can be to open up to someone only to find that your core values are dramatically misaligned.
These are some of my core beliefs:
I believe that our worth should not be defined by our ability to be productive in capitalism.
I believe in the power of harm reduction in keeping people alive.
I believe that we all deserve full bodily autonomy and self-determination.
I believe that health is a multi-faceted and complex thing, not a moral imperative that we owe others.
I believe that diversity is a social, cultural, and intellectual strength.
I believe that we all deserve unconditional access to healthcare, shelter, education, and social services.
I believe that there is great importance in recognizing and challenging systemic and implicit biases around race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, size, immigration status, ability, and other social markers.
I believe that there is immeasurable pain being caused by our carceral systems, borders, colonial occupations, and wars.
I believe in our collective power as human beings to make societal change, as well as our individual capacity for growth, healing, rehabilitation, and change.
I am an open book if you have questions or concerns about any of these beliefs and want to have a conversation.
I believe that we all deserve bodily autonomy and unconditional access to healthcare, shelter, education, and social services.