How you learned to love when you were small can inform the way you feel your feelings for the rest of your life. To gain insight into these important patterns of connection, we’ll dig into your attachment experiences. (But don’t worry, we don’t have to spend a ton of energy on childhood stuff if you don’t want to!)

We’re going to talk about you. The way you move through the world and the unique internal narrative you have developed are important factors in your mental health, so we’re putting your perspective at the heart of it all.

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” -Carl Rogers

You don’t have to sit on a couch and tell me about all your problems. Walk and talk therapy is a little like those car conversations you may have had with your loved ones as a teen. If you do your best thinking and processing while you’re on the move and want to bring your therapeutic journey beyond the bounds of my office, we can make that happen.

When you’re healing, it’s easy to get stuck in the storm of emotions that roll in. We can’t control or stop the storm, but we can learn to see the signs and drop anchor so we don’t get lost at sea. Through metaphors such as this and action-oriented steps, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy encourages you to acknowledge your feelings and the stressors stacking up while still moving toward what’s important to you.

As a former hospice social worker, I have often found myself in close quarters with death, forced to come to terms with life’s sometimes poetic, but mostly painful endings. As I help loved ones make their peace, I draw insight from psychologist William Worden’s Four Tasks of Mourning, Alan Wolfelt’s Eleven Tenets of Companioning the Bereaved, and existential theory’s infrastructure that invites us to create our own meaning.

A main tenet of the Montessori philosophy is that children will always guide themselves toward learning what they need. As a former Montessori high school teacher, I love incorporating this spirit of self-led learning in my therapeutic approach if it feels right for you.

“The senses, being the explorers of the world, open the way to knowledge.” -Maria Montessori

Do you know your Enneagram or Myers-Briggs type? If so, bring it to the metaphorical therapy table. Sometimes objectively exploring the way your personality intersects with your current challenges offers you access and insight you may not get otherwise. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, but your personality type can offer a springboard for personal growth.

Your connection to your body and breath serve as important indicators of how you’re really coping with this whole life thing. You can tap into these psychotherapeutic powerhouses by noticing the relationship between your body and your mind. These tools are things you can use in therapy and in between sessions.

Love to read? Super into that show you just binged this weekend? Bring it to therapy. Connecting through hobbies, media, and passions are a powerful way to inspire meaningful change in some seriously awesome ways.