My Practice

Chances are, if you’ve found your way here, you’ve been seeking a therapist who can welcome the whole you.

Maybe you’re struggling with something new and big in your life right now, or with something that has been with you for a long time.

Maybe it’s a lot of things, all at once.

Maybe things are okay, and you want to try taking care of yourself in a new way.

Maybe you aren’t even sure if this whole therapy thing is really what you want yet.

That’s all welcome here. I make space for complexity, intensity, and uncertainty.

My Approach

My primary training is in Gestalt, a kind of mindfulness-based experiential and somatic therapy that encourages us to “be present with what is present.” I also bring in Parts Work (“store brand” IFS), Mindfulness and Self-compassion, Attachment Theory, Narrative Therapy, and Psychodynamic Therapy.

All of these modalities play well together, because they help us connect the dots between the emotions, tendencies, and survival strategies we have now and the events, systems, stories, and relationships that shaped us throughout our lives, allowing us to release patterns that no longer serve us and move forward with intention.

Additionally, I am trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and Brainspotting, techniques that can help change relationships with traumatic experiences, and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), which can help identify, connect with, understand, and communicate feelings and attachment styles. Lastly, I often bring in Transpersonal Therapy, which can help connect to things that bring clients a sense of meaning and purpose, whether this be spirituality, religion, philosophy, community, or justice.

*My approach is, for the most part, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)-free. The exception is that I use Inference—Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (I-CBT) to treat Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). I-CBT is a newer, highly effective treatment modality for OCD. I use it in my practice because for me, personally, it was life-changing and gave me the greatest symptom relief of any OCD treatment I ever tried. While I cannot promise any particular outcome for you, I do find this modality is helpful for most of my clients who try it. I-CBT treatment is a bit like a class rather than traditional therapy. If you’d like to try it, we’ll go through a set of 12 modules of psychoeducation and exercises, plus weekly homework. Generally this process takes about 6-12 weeks if we focus primarily on the I-CBT. I am happy to divide session time between I-CBT and other work each week if you’d like.

Who I Am

If we are going to embark on this therapy endeavor together, you might wonder about who I am. I come to this work from several prior careers, and I exist at multiple intersections of identity, including queerness, transness, neurodivergence, chronic illness, and an Indigenous and white heritage (I am an enrolled member of a Federally-recognized tribe). Originally from Alaska, I am an Elder Millennial with a mixed-class experience, a personal spiritual practice, and an ex-Catholic background. In addition to my passion for decolonial psychology, I am an unabashed nerd about birds, plants, art, my culture, and all kinds of speculative fiction. I became a therapist in part because I saw that in this field, there weren’t very many people like me, and I wanted to do my part to help change that. I believe that everyone deserves a therapist who can welcome and hold space for them in all their many facets of identity and experience. I encourage you to bring as much of your whole, complicated self to therapy as you wish!

I welcome clients from all walks of life, and I specialize in clients with the following experiences and identities:

• Two-Spirit and IndigiQueer folx

• Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and/or Gender Expansive people; People who identify as Queer, Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Pan, Ace, Aro, Questioning, and more

• Polyam/CNM

• Kink and BDSM community members

• Neurodivergence

• Disability, chronic pain, and/or chronic illness

• Mixed or complex race, ethnicity, heritage, and/or culture

• Indigenous people

• Spiritual people, pagans/polytheists, clergy, UUs, “culturally Catholic” folx, and “recovering”/ex-Catholics

• Artists, writers, and craftspeople

• Academics and college/university professionals and students

• Veterinarians, vet techs, and pet professionals

• Therapy/Counseling Psychology students and trainees

• Laboratory techs

• Wildlife, biology, zoology, natural history, and museum professionals and students

• People from rural and non-urban communities or backgrounds

• People identified with nerd/geek/fandom communities