Humans are social creatures. How you feel in your connections with other people (partners, friends, parents, children) profoundly impacts your well-being. Do you struggle to ask for what you need? Is it difficult to hold to a boundary? Do you go quickly to anger and blame, or do you shut down and avoid? Do you find yourself activated by the same things again and again?

Most relational templates are learned early on. As a child, you adopt strategies to get your needs met and stay as safe as possible. Then, as an adult, you find yourself repeating these same deeply ingrained approaches, even when they no longer serve you. You may be frustrated with the lack-of-control, with responses that feel more like reactions.

I view these survival strategies or protective parts as wise ways of handling experiences and situations in which there were no other options for you at the time. Together, we will get to know these protective parts of you, listen and understand, and help alleviate the necessity for them to be the primary driver of your choices and actions.

I work best with people who are starting to see their patterns, but insight has not been enough to shift them; who are ready to engage with the question “what parts of me are contributing to this dynamic?” Not from a place of shaming or judgment, but from a place of genuine curiosity and compassion.  

If you get triggered in relationship, or act in ways that do not align with your values, I get it. I do, too. When the usual tactics of intellectualization, will-power, and self-criticism aren’t helping you change, I offer a different way of supporting you. I practice Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, which is an experiential approach that is well-suited to working with relational wounding and trauma.