Style of Therapy
"There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, 'Morning, boys. How’s the water?' And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, 'What the hell is water?'” - David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
What is Relational Therapy?
Relational therapy understands that we are shaped in relationship, so healing also happens in the lived, moment-to-moment connection between therapist and client. Rather than focusing only on symptoms, it pays attention to how your patterns, expectations, and protective strategies show up between us and what they reveal about your history and longings. I also consider the cultural and moral world you were formed in—how its demands, silences, and ideals shaped who you felt you had to be. Together we’re not just reducing distress, but understanding your experience within a much bigger story, so you can embrace yourself as a human who is moving through a complex world, navigating the best they can with values, beliefs, and strategies that need to be reviewed and updated based on our new understandings.
What Can I Expect Working With You?
My work sits at the intersection of relational psychodynamic therapy, parts-work, and embodied awareness. I help people slow down enough to hear themselves—both the parts that are loud and anxious, and the quieter parts that hold longing, intuition, and truth. Together, we make sense of how past relationships, internal roles, and protective patterns shape your present struggles with connection, identity, and self-worth.
I tend to work in a collaborative, exploratory way: clarifying what feels confusing, naming what’s been implicit, and helping you see the emotional logic beneath reactions that feel chaotic or overwhelming. I pay close attention to the stories you tell, the defenses you lean on, and the places you feel stuck or pulled in two directions. At times I’ll offer interpretations or reframe something in a new light; other times I’ll guide you to notice what’s happening in your body or speak from an internal part that hasn’t had a voice.
Clients often describe my style as warm, curious, and grounded. I use empathy, humor, and the relationship between us to make room for the full range of your experience—grief, fear, ambivalence, desire, and the urge to protect yourself. I also draw from my background in creativity and the psychology of technology, which helps me understand how people navigate modern relationships, social comparison, burnout, and the search for authenticity in an overstimulated world.
Ultimately, my goal is to help you develop more freedom in how you move through your life: not by forcing change, but by understanding the deeper patterns that keep you feeling anxious, disconnected, or not enough—and by discovering the parts of you that already know how you want to live. LET’S GET STARTED!
Adolescent Therapy
(I'm sorry but I am not currently accepting child and teen patients, but I hope this information is helpful with your search)
Adolescents tend to take a longer time to feel comfortable enough to open up in therapy, so developing the type of relationship that leads to the types of changes you hope for in your child is a large part of the work. Oftentimes, teens also do not find direct psychological interpretations of thoughts, feelings and behaviors helfpul. This means there is more use of metaphor and storytelling, but most importantly, modeling patience, curiosity and contemplation, especially toward their most defensive and provocative behaviors. These types of alternative responses (to their attempts to elicit familiar or expected reactions from others), not only helps them to relax their defenses toward others but toward themselves, so they can be more in touch with how their feelings and what’s going on in their lives go together. This results in a child who can slow down, get a handle on their thoughts and feelings, and ultimately realize their needs so they can go about getting them met in non-distressing ways.
Child Play Therapy
Child therapy is significantly different than therapy with teens or adults. Children have very little awareness of what drives their feelings and behavior and do not often have a strong ability to express these things. Children also have a very low tolerance for discomfort and confrontation in therapy. This is what makes a less verbal form of therapy, like play therapy, a more effective approach for children. Children use play to organize experience and gain mastery over feelings. The therapist follows along with the play while identifying prominent feelings and themes. More importantly is how the therapist reacts to the child’s attempts to elicit familiar reactions from the therapist, whether it is disappointment or complacency. By consistently meeting these attempts by the child with a thoughtful reaction, it can help break children from these cycles.