Therapy Services

Individuals

Sometimes people come to sessions with a clear goal or need in mind, sometimes people just know they can’t keep going like they have been. Whether it’s your first time trying therapy or you feel like you’ve tried everything, we’ll start where you are.

Grounded in Relational Psychodynamic Therapy, my work includes Internal Family Systems therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, as well as mindfulness, polyvagal theory and somatic interventions to bring to the table whatever might be helpful.

Like Aspen trees, connected through their roots and living as a single organism, I believe we are all connected. Our happiness and suffering is not separate from one another, and our pain and healing isn’t either. You are not flawed or damaged for having your struggles and your efforts to heal are not self serving.

Couples and Intimate Partners

Your relationship deserves care and attention. Whether you are monogamous, consensually non-monogamous, working through a split or building something new and intentional, relationships take work, time and effort. I believe relationships can evolve over time, that old ruts can be filled in and new pathways formed, and that we can reinvent ourselves and our relationships through the course of our lives. I have a passion for working with partners in therapy because we are uniquely vulnerable in these relationships, and it is where we have the capacity to heal deeply.

This does not mean all partners in my office choose to stay together. Sometimes, from a place of clarity, perspective and equanimity, one or both people determine this is not the relationship they choose any more, that the healing journey together is complete. This is not for me to decide, my role is to help people see themselves clearly and improve their communication to decide on the relationship they want.

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Intimacy From the Inside Out is an innovative approach to relationship work, building on the IFS model to deepen secure relationships within each person and create courageous space for authentic connection between people. By focusing on what is happening internally instead of the behaviors that show up externally, IFIO addresses the root of issues between people. It helps us discover the protective nature of our behavior, and gives us insight into what is being protected.  This can lead to changing longstanding and painful patterns, and open possibilities to create something new together.  We are all most vulnerable in our attachment relationships, and so much of our pain and vulnerability can show up here. Helping people heal these relationships and cultivate communication and trust leads to enormous personal growth, and is work that is dear to my heart.

“Conflict, managed rightly, yields intimacy.” Sallie Ingle, IFIO Trainer, Austin Texas

Weekly Sessions 

Weekly 50-60 minute sessions will usually take people where they want to go over time, integrating the therapy progress in daily life. Weekly sessions offer the opportunity to focus on life’s difficulties as they arise, and begin to uncover what in the past might be related to the distress in the present. Working in small bites, people have a chance to integrate a piece of work and see how they are metabolizing it and applying changes.

Intensives

Intensives offer longer time blocks, usually 3 or 6 hours with breaks as needed. IFS intensives create space to work with protectors, building trust across the system. I often say that connection with protectors is not in the way of the work, it is the work. Intensive sessions offer time for deep integration of unburdenings, and time to look toward the future.

For couples, intensives can help people get “over the hump” when ruptures have built up deep defenses. Long sessions allow more time for Courageous Communication, facilitation of repair, skill building for home, and time for imagining the future differently.

Sometimes the stress of daily living builds conflicts between sessions and the therapy can feel like we keep building a sandcastle that gets wiped out by the latest storm, longer sessions allow us to get below the present conflict and facilitate a new relational experience over hours, not weeks or months.

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