I have a decade’s worth of experience researching and treating anxiety. My deep understanding of anxiety lies at the heart of all my therapy work. Anxiety also lies at the heart of being human. Anxiety is a strong motivating force; it protects us, keeps us safe, helps us reach our goals, and underscores what is important to us. However, when it becomes unwieldy, showing up as emotional, cognitive, physiological, or behavioral distress, it tends to shrink our world and tank our self-esteem. Self-limiting anxiety bears many faces, including an ever-present “buzzing” feeling that makes stillness feel unbearable, seemingly unexplained irritability or fatigue, playing out elaborate “what if” scenarios in your mind, chronic indecision, chasing perfection, and routine avoidance of people, places, or situations.

My belief that no emotion is “negative” or “bad” underscores my approach to anxiety treatment. We will collaboratively explore the origins of your anxiety (i.e., familial, cultural, environmental) and how your anxiety may have helped you in the past, with the ultimate goal of helping you choose to relate to yourself, the world, and others differently. My approach combines deep self-exploration with behavioral approaches. In my mind, in line with the gold standard for anxiety treatment, successful treatment of anxiety culminates in tolerating exposure to that which you are afraid of, whether that’s relating from a place of vulnerability (vs. independence or defensiveness), allowing yourself to make mistakes, asking for help, embracing stillness, or taking risks.

The vast majority of my therapy work centers on helping individuals build and maintain more meaningful interpersonal relationships. In my experience, this is the most common concern that brings individuals to therapy.

My clients seeking relational support typically fall into one or more of the following broad categories: (1) avoid or experience little to no interpersonal conflict, (2) find themselves in constant conflict with others, or (3) keep engaging in the same unwanted interpersonal patterns. Together, we will explore your typical way of relating to yourself and others, such as from a place of :

• Skepticism, where it’s hard to trust others have good intentions.

• Defensiveness, where being right is the most important thing. You may feel the need for power and control.

• Over-functioning/control, where anything less than perfection isn’t good enough, and asking for help is not an option.

• Self-enhancement, where you want to be perceived as “the best.”

• Deflection, where humor and pretending to be fine keep others out.

• Empathy, but your needs get lost along the way. You may crave affection or approval from others.

• Avoidance, where you keep to yourself for fear of getting hurt or being misunderstood. You may crave independence and fear closeness.

We will work together to understand how your way of being has served you in the past and how it’s keeping you stuck now. Through enhanced self-understanding and practicing new ways of being in therapy (e.g., vulnerability, curiosity, and flexibility), you will learn to relate to yourself and others in new ways that more closely align with your relationship goals.

I work with individuals to process and recover from traumatic experiences that have altered how they see and understand themselves, close relationships, and the world. Trauma, by definition, shatters one’s sense of self, safety, and meaning. At its most injurious, trauma challenges the truth that you are worthy of love and care, and that your story is true and worthy of telling. For this reason, science and research underscore the importance of the therapeutic relationship and exposure to trauma-related memories, experiences, and feelings in trauma treatment. With this in mind, I practice trauma therapy from an interpersonal lens focused on creating a therapeutic relationship that is safe enough for you to tell your trauma story and create a new meaning of your loss and pain.

I am passionate about working with women navigating the unique struggles and joys associated with motherhood. I work with women experiencing pregnancy-related anxiety and depression, postpartum anxiety and depression, miscarriage, and infertility. I also work with women preparing to step into motherhood, anticipating the ways their world will inevitably change as they take on a new role, and with new mothers grappling with the demands of motherhood and their shifting identity. Anything and everything related to mothering is tender and deserving of grace tenfold. I am committed to understanding the nuance of your motherhood journey and helping you deepen your self-understanding, equipping you with the flexibility, curiosity, and self-compassion to be the mother you want to be.

Maybe none of the above descriptions match what’s going on for you. Maybe the thing that brings you to therapy feels hard to put into words. You might feel like on the outside, it looks like you’ve got it all figured out, but behind closed doors, you feel lonely (even when you’re surrounded by others), bone-tired, afraid of nothing and everything all at once, burnt out, directionless, anxious, on-edge, and sad about things you can’t quite explain. If this description resonates with you, we’d probably make a pretty good team. I work with this presentation by engaging individuals in deep self-understanding work. We’ll go deeper to sharpen your understanding of who you are, what you need, and what’s missing in your world. This therapy work often feels like constructing a puzzle, piece by piece, story by story, and experience by experience. We’ll work together to build a coherent picture of who you are.