Collaborative Care, Tailored to Your Needs
Using a blend of trauma-informed therapy approaches, my role is to support and guide you towards healing self-acceptance. Together, we'll delve into your past wounds and traumas, understanding how they contribute to your current struggles with anxiety, exhaustion, and overwhelm. We'll work on addressing these wounds, allowing you to release burdens and overcome over-functioning tendencies.
We develop practical ways to help you tune into your emotions and body with a greater sense of mindfulness, allowing you course-correct before crossing into the burnout zone. We'll also reprocess past distressing experiences so they are no longer triggering, helping you feel empowered so you can move forward feeling resilient and strong. Below, I go into detail about my primary approach as an IFS-informed EMDR therapist.
MODALITIES
Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy
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EMDR Accesses your brain's natural ability to process and heal itself from traumatic memories and is a highly collaborative model– one of my favorite aspects of EMDR is helping you develop tools and resources that resonate with you to help you regulate during EMDR sessions and in your daily life. Together, we develop these emotional regulation and grounding skills that allow you to safely and effectively re-process past memories using bilateral stimulation (eye movements, tapping, or auditory tones). Bilateral stimulation helps unlock the traumatic memories stored in your brain, allowing them to be processed and integrated in a more adaptive way so they are no longer distressing.
Through this process, you become less triggered by past distressing experiences; EMDR helps the memory become desensitized. My clients often express they feel more neutral about the memories we reprocess or that it has lost its “charge.” As the reprocessing occurs you’re able to reframe past experiences, and develop more adaptive beliefs about yourself. By addressing and resolving the underlying trauma, EMDR empowers you to let go of core negative beliefs such as “I’m not good enough;” “I am a failure.” and embrace more positive beliefs, leading to greater self-compassion and confidence to navigate challenges in the future.
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Clients love the mix of flexibility and structure of EMDR, finding it helps them shift towards more positive beliefs in a shorter amount of time. They report meaningful connections and a greater ability to empathize with their younger selves during reprocessing, and experiencing faster healing from trauma compared to traditional talk therapy without needing to share in-detail about past traumas.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy
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IFS is a non-pathological, trauma-informed approach that integrates somatic (body-based) work. IFS views each of our minds as a complex system made up of different “parts,” each with its own unique emotions, beliefs, and memories. As we get to know the different parts of you, I help you develop mindfulness around how your parts show up, exploring your internal system of thoughts, emotions, and sensations, understanding how they manifest physically. Even the parts of us we may feel most ashamed of or appear outwardly the most self-destructive have good intentions for us, and are trying to protect us; they may just not be going about it in the most helpful ways. We approach your system with curiosity rather than judgment, asking why does this part of me show up, and what is it afraid will happen if it doesn’t?
Curiosity allows you to foster compassion towards these parts of you, and better understand their stories. Often these parts are over-functioning to protect us as a result of attachment wounds or trauma.
As you engage in inner dialogue between these parts from a posture of compassion and wisdom, you’re able to develop a trusting relationship with these wounded parts through validating, understanding and collaborating with them. As we build trust with these wounded parts from a place of compassion, you have the opportunity to witness the past traumas that led to these parts taking on extreme roles in the first place, and engage in re-parenting work so these parts can release the burdens and wounds they carry and don’t fall into extreme roles. This allows you to operate from a more integrated place and brings a greater sense of balance and clarity to your system rather than parts constantly taking over and self-sabotaging.
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Clients express feeling more aware of the mind-body connection. Clients share that parts language helps them to better understand themselves and their experience. Clients express IFS lends itself to greater self-discovery and see themselves able to develop self-compassion and a kinder internal dialogue.
Therapy with me is a highly tailored experience. Other approaches I integrate include:
Attachment-Based: Explore and understand how your attachment style and attachment wounds impact you in the present (e.g. impact on dating and relationships, how you may cope with stress/pain, and unlearning unhelpful relationship patterns).
Strengths-Based: Identifying and building on current strengths you have to help you reach your goals; helping you identify what you’re good at and point out areas where you can continue integrating and developing these strengths.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Develop mindfulness skills to help you better recognize when you’re starting to feel upset or anxious and tools to help ground you. Focus on reframing and challenging unhelpful thought patterns/ beliefs.
Culturally Sensitive: Honoring and exploring how your cultural background intersects with your mental health. Understanding the impact of intergenerational trauma, microaggressions and discrimination on mental and emotional well-being. Exploring how you can balance honoring family and culture while also meeting your own needs.
Systems Approach: Understanding and exploring how multi-layered systems impact how you view yourself, relationships, and the world in multiple facets from the larger, Macro systems (e.g. societal, cultural) to the smaller, Micro ones (e.g. nuclear family system).
MY PRACTICE VALUES
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Curiosity
Curiosity is the touchstone of my work, the thoughtful “why?” that encourages deeper understanding. By embracing curiosity, we foster an environment of openness and growth, where every aspect of ourselves is met with understanding and acceptance, allowing us to extend compassion towards all of our parts.
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Compassion
Compassion creates an environment of acceptance and empathy. Rather than judging the parts of us we want to hide the most, compassion allows us to go beyond what is at the surface and address the root of why these parts show up for you.
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Creativity
Valuing creativity in my practice is part of how I honor each person’s uniqueness. Building on the strengths and resourcefulness you already possess and finding what truly resonates with you allows me to tailor our work to meet your individual needs.
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Collaboration
One of the most profound ways we can bring healing to deep relational pain is through authentic relationships and partnering together to co-create meaningful and sustainable paths toward growth. I know therapy is an investment in multiple ways, so I approach our work collaboratively to help you get what you need to thrive.
