About Therapy
My Approach in Therapy
I believe that we contain within ourselves (and our communities) what we need to experience healing and that my role as a therapist is to facilitate that healing process in collaboration with you. You are the expert of your own experience, and the survival strategies and sources of resilience that have allowed you to reach this point in your life are incredible strengths.
I integrate several types of therapy and tailor my approach to be most helpful for you. My education as a therapist has been grounded in neuroscientific, somatic (body-based), feminist, multicultural, mindfulness, cognitive behavioral, "parts work," and harm reduction approaches to therapy. I am in an ongoing practice of decolonizing my approach to therapy and welcome you to bring traditional, ancestral, and spiritual healing practices that are authentic to you into our therapy work.
A session with me might include:
Somatic (body-based) practices that can help you feel less overwhelmed and connect more easily to good feelings
Curious, non-judgmental exploration of your present moment experience that allows you to relate to yourself in new ways and to engage in your life with more ease and flexibility
Identifying helpful and unhelpful patterns in environments, relationships, thoughts, and behaviors as well as strategies for change
I have particular training in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Lifespan Integration, "parts work" informed by Internal Family Systems (IFS), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Motivational Interviewing. I have also earned a Telemental Health Training Certificate (2020) and I continue training in adapting these therapies for online therapy.
Who I Work With
I specialize in working with queer, trans, and nonbinary folks of all intersecting identities, particularly those who are targets of oppression (including 2S and Indigiqueer, other BIPOC folks, neurodivergent and disabled folks, immigrants, etc.). I often work with people living in rural areas, kinksters, college and graduate students, actors, and activists. I also enjoy working with other therapists, including graduate students in practicum.
My areas of focus in therapy include:
Trauma: this may include specific difficult experiences you've lived through, intergenerational and historical trauma, and societal/cultural trauma related to oppression (such as racism, ableism, cissexism, sizeism, etc.)
Anxiety and stress
Navigating big life changes and cultivating resilience
Identity exploration (race, gender, sexuality, disability, etc.), including impacts of experiencing privilege and oppression
Chronic illness and chronic pain
Perfectionism, self-criticism, and over-thinking
Attention and executive functioning
Navigating the world as a neurodivergent and/or highly sensitive person
Building skills for healthy relationships, including polyamory/non-monogamy, BDSM and kink, and relationships as an asexual or aromantic person
Exploration of BDSM, kink, and sexual desire
Sustaining action for social change (including developing anti-racist practice as a white person)
My approach is social justice oriented, sex worker affirming, sex and body positive, and weight neutral.
"Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare." Audre Lorde
Nonbinary therapist queer therapy in Seattle, Olympia, Vancouver, Bellingham, Yakima, Spokane