Sacred Space Therapy

I am a Licensed Professional Counselor with extensive experience and knowledge gained in domestic violence/sexual assault centers, psychiatric inpatient and partial hospitalization, and intensive outpatient. My experience includes working with trauma, mood disorders, anxiety, self-harm and eating disorders. I continue to be committed to my personal and professional growth. I am an EMDR trained therapist, and currently in the comprehensive training program for the Hakomi, which is a mindfulness based body-centered therapy.

When someone is suffering deeply and perhaps having uncontrollable desires to harm themselves, they need a safe space for the work of healing.  Therapy based on acceptance, compassion, and regard for the whole individual can provide safety to look at the wounded and rejected parts of ourselves.

I have an integrative approach to therapy that includes working with behaviors, thought processes and the deeper issues beneath the surface. The therapy models I use include mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, felt sense, expressive/experiential and psychodynamic therapy.   This approach allows us to identify symptoms, emotions, behaviors, and parts of ourselves we reject and “see” the wisdom that can be missed when we try to rid ourselves of them.  My intention is to help you live a more full life: feeling alive and awake, and living a life of your making.  In getting to know the endless resources we have within ourselves we begin to recognize our power and can build up our inner strength to not be blown over by life, but instead remain steady in whatever life presents to us.

Special areas of interest:  Eating disorders, Self-harm and Trauma

I provide individual and group therapy for adolescents and adults. A person may come to therapy for a variety of reasons ranging from suffering severe emotional pain to a search for meaning or personal growth.

Therapy offers an improved quality of life which is truly immeasurable. Benefits that one could derive are:

• recognize and manage emotions
• compassionately move through grief or life transitions
• infuse creativity into areas of their life that were blocked before
• a deeper connection with themselves
• more self-awareness, making sense out of their behaviors or patterns
• love for themselves and learning how to be kind to themselves
• healthier relationships
• empowerment in decision making and choices
• healthier relationship with food and their bodies
• healing past traumas or hurts

EMDR Therapy:  Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a researched psychotherapy approach shown to be effective in treating post-traumatic stress.  In addition, EMDR has been used successfully to treat eating disorders, body dysmorphic disorders, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and stress.  EMDR therapy helps the brain process through material that was too disturbing to be processed through at the time.  These memories get frozen with their original images, feelings, sounds, and smells, which can interfere with a person’s daily life.  EMDR therapy helps unfreeze this material and make it less disturbing.

Mindfulness:  Mindfulness is the opposite of what we all have been told would be best for us.  We are told to get rid of, fix, change or ignore anything that causes suffering.  Mindfulness teaches us to be with what is in the present moment, even if this is a difficult emotion or life situation.  In therapy, mindfulness can help a person build up their ability to stay with difficult emotions rather than seeking a destructive behavior in order to cope.  The models I use are acceptance and commitment therapy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy.

Expressive/Experiential Therapy:  Expressive therapy, also called experiential therapy, helps a person express a feeling or pattern. This is done through the use of art (drawing, painting or collages), music, sandtray, and images. In expressive therapy we work with the experience of how something feels. This work is also about the process of creating something that goes beyond the words used in traditional talk therapy. It is about the process, not about the finished product. Expressive therapy increases a person’s understanding of themselves and provides a way to cope with difficult emotions.