As a therapist, I work with adults, teens (15+), relationships (traditional and non-traditional), and families. 

I grew up in central Indiana and graduated for Franklin College with a degree in elementary education, and received my master’s degree from Indiana University School of Social Work, Indianapolis campus.

With my background in education, I find it rewarding to hold space for clients as they are discovering, learning, uncovering, and reencountering the parts of themselves that have been hidden, lost, tamed, taken, shamed, forsaken, abandoned, and exiled. Helping clients learn that advocating for themselves, and developing deeper levels of compassion and curiosity for themselves and others is offering healing to those same parts; empowering my clients in new ways.  

I specialize in trauma and how it impacts relationships. I love working with couples, especially those who have experienced the hurt from early child trauma, infidelity, or struggle connecting around parenting. It provides a wonderful opportunity for couples to re-envision their relationships anew: what it can become by re-connecting and experiencing emotional resonance, while also learning how to face the pain and hurt they experienced; sometimes learning how to be in relationship vulnerably for the first time, after being in a relationship for years. Working with non-traditional relationships has been a lot of fun. We get to explore how each person wants to share and receive love from their partners, while maintaining an open dialogue to share what wounds and adaptations come up along the way, learning to define the relationship based on their experiences, wants, and needs—which is what every healthy relationship needs. 

Regardless of the client, helping anyone discover, resonate, be empowered, and live authentically through life’s challenges is a calling I humbly accept. Helping increase awareness and offering a safe space to process uncomfortable feelings so each client can make intentional choices for their life is so rewarding. I also enjoy helping those who are empathic learn how to establish routines for self-care and ways to work with their emotions and body sensation so they can engage with life and others in a way that can help them learn to self-regulate.. 

I am trained in Brainspotting, which is a brain-body relational psychotherapy that is shown to work well with many areas of struggle, including trauma, depression, and anxiety to name a few. It uses feelings in the body and one’s visual field to process events in the subconscious or non-verbal parts of the brain. It has helped so many clients gain freedom after their trauma.  

I am also working on my certification in Imago, which is a dialogical therapy (based on having specific types of conversations with another). Imago focuses on the wounding experienced early in life and how we adapt to those hurts. When in a relationship, our adaptations can cause conflict. Imago seeks to find the source of the adaptations and provides the space necessary for partners to connect, heal, and grow, by providing corrective emotional experiences for each other.

Other trainings I have taken: EFT (Emotional Focused Couples Therapy), which is primarily based in Attachment Theory and Systems Theory, where the aim of working with couples is to meet the partners attachment level needs by helping them identify, understand and express emotions to create a secure and responsive attachment/connection with each other. Ideally, the couple would move away from anger, withdrawal, and blame, and move towards each other with trust, security, and openness. With the focus on emotions, it tends to be more structured, however, I tend to blend multiple approaches and flow in and out of modalities in a given session.  

I have taken Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Foundations classes through Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute. It has helped me understand the that there is a root for everything. It’s a form of talk therapy that explores the unconscious thoughts and emotions, often coming from childhood experiences, in order to gain insight and resolve challenges a client may be facing. It also delves into how our relationship as client and therapist is impacted by the things that come up. By working through those transferences we can better understand what is happening on an unconscious level. 

I invite individuals, relationships (traditional and non-traditional), and families who seek deeper, more meaningful connections to themselves and those around them. I am committed to building and maintaining a therapeutic relationship that will support curiosity, compassion, healing, and self-awareness for my clients.  

If you would like to know more about my therapeutic processes, please reach out.  I would love to speak to you about how we can work together to help you reach your goals.  

Discover, Resonate, Be Empowered, Live Authentically.