Collaborative Therapy
Working together to determine the path we should follow to achieve your goals.
Eating Disorder Treatment
I view eating disorders as survival tools, and I will come into our work together with the fundamental belief that your eating disorder saved your life. And, if you’re seeking treatment for it, you’ve realized that your eating disorder is no longer working for you.
We have a variety of tools we can use to help you find a more sustainable way to live. We can use Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) to help you develop alternative coping strategies and figure out why behaviors happen. We can draw on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to challenge eating disorder thoughts and reduce the control the eating disorder has over your mind and life. We can use techniques from Somatic Experiencing and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy to get in tune with your body and access the innate wisdom there. We can use emotion focused strategies to practice feeling and processing emotions. And, if appropriate, we can bring members of your support system into therapy to increase the support you have at home.
Trauma Treatment
I define trauma broadly as wounds from anything that threatens life, identity, or relationship. Trauma may come from a single event, or it may come from a series of large or small events over time. Trauma can come from relational patterns or attachment ruptures. Trauma is a wound, and wounds can heal.
Whatever you did to survive trauma was exactly right and was necessary for your survival. We will honor and value those techniques, and we will work to understand why you used those techniques. We’ll use that knowledge and understanding to make informed decisions about whether to continue to use those same techniques, or whether to add additional tools to your toolbox to use.
We may use a variety of therapeutic strategies, based on your interest, comfort, and preference. We may use cognitive, or thought-based, techniques, such as Cognitive Processing Therapy. We may focus on coping skills to increase your sense of safety and decrease the impact your symptoms are having on your life. We may work to process emotions, finally feeling emotions that perhaps you’ve been suppressing. We may get in touch with your past self and provide the care and compassion that your inner child or past self needed. We may use somatic, or body-based, techniques to help your body release energy from the trauma.
LGBTQ+ Support
Existing as a queer or trans person in this society is hard. And it’s full of joy. Wherever you are on your journey of self-exploration, I would be honored to walk alongside you. It’s a gift to bear witness to people’s initial questioning, their grappling with choices about how to move through the world, and the highs and lows of navigating a society of oppression and communities of love and empowerment.
I provide letters of support for trans people seeking gender affirming medical interventions. My goal is to reduce barriers to accessing care, and to that end, I am committed to providing at least one pro bono letter of support per month.
Care for the Caregivers
Having a loved one with an eating disorder or other mental illness is hard. You love them so much, and yet you don’t know how to help. You want to make it all better, but that’s impossible, and perhaps your attempts seem to do nothing or make it worse. Perhaps your loved one is receiving support, or perhaps they are refusing help. Either way, perhaps you feel helpless, out of the loop, uncertain, fearful, angry, exhausted, overwhelmed, or ready to give up.
You deserve support.
We can work on techniques around how you can best support your loved one’s recovery process: techniques that are designed to take the same or less energy, not more. We can process the emotions that are coming up to you and talk through stressors. We can make space for you to laugh and cry and rage and rest.
We can do all of this individually or with multiple members of the family. Couples counseling can be beneficial for parents of people with mental illnesses, as your loved one’s mental illness may start to sneak into your relationship.
Trainings and Workshops
Trainings available on request. My passion is to train on treating transgender clients with eating disorders. Other topics available on request. Trainings/Workshops are tailored for your organization.