Individual Therapy

Welcome.  If you're here, you might be ready to take the next step to getting help.  Choosing the right therapist is an important decision, and I'm here to answer any questions and assist you in making the choice that feels right.  My focus is on building a trusting therapeutic relationship so you receive the support and guidance you need to navigate life's challenges.  I work interactively and collaboratively to identify what keeps you from living a more fulfilling life.  Together, we'll explore past and present struggles and develop newer, healthier coping skills.  I believe healing and change happen when we have the opportunity to connect more deeply with ourselves and with the world around us.    

Many of my clients work in the entertainment industry as I have extensive and personal experience with the unique struggles and challenges of this field.  Prior to becoming a therapist, I spent more than 20 years working in the entertainment industry.

"Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes."
— Carl Jung

Somatic Experiencing

Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a powerful way of working with the body to resolve trauma and other emotional stressors.  It builds on the profound connection between mind and body; this connection impacts how (and whether) we recover from trauma. Sudden or ongoing trauma can cause a person to become “stuck” in the flight, fight or freeze response that impairs normal functioning.  I work with patients to facilitate the completion of self-protective responses that allow for a release of energy trapped in the body as a result of trauma or distress.  This approach focuses on not only the sensory experience of the body, but the emotions, images, memories and behaviors that accompany that experience.  One way of thinking about SE is as a “bottom up” approach.  We are dropping out of the head and into the body, and this experience can be profoundly transformative.

“And the body remembers what the mind forgets, archives every heartbreak and cigarette."
— Field Report

Couples Therapy

I am passionate about working with couples no matter where they are in their relationship.  Whether a couple is new to their relationship, has been together for years or is looking to peacefully separate, I am committed to helping them reach their goals.  I believe a healthy relationship is one in which you understand and acknowledge your and your partner's needs, desires and boundaries.  But so often, couples don’t share their vulnerabilities with each other.  Or they do it in a way their partner cannot hear.  I provide a safe space for couples to open up to each other in ways that would, in other circumstances, seem threatening.  I help to break destructive patterns of communication and establish healthy modes of relating, which leads to deeper intimacy and connection. Together we will explore how the past affects the present and how unconscious motivations may be influencing the relationship.

"Where there is a secure bond, individual differences are not threatening, but are in fact enlivening.  To be more fully connected is to be more fully oneself".
— Susan M. Johnson

Therapy for Partners of Sex Addicts

I approach working with partners of sex addicts through the lens of Dr. Omar Minwalla's Sex Addiction-Induced Trauma(SAIT) model.  I work with the thirteen dimensions of trauma experienced by the partner, including discovery/disclosure, gender and sexuality wounding, and therapy-induced trauma--, that is, the trauma resulting from exposure to therapy that labeled the partner as a co-sex addict or codependent.  The goal in working through the partner’s trauma is healing, empowerment, rebirth and reintegration, not only of the shattered parts of the self but of the relationship, should the partner choose to stay.  I integrate aspects of Somatic Experiencing, art therapy, psychodynamic psychotherapy and mindfulness.  I am deeply invested in helping partners move through the challenges, struggles and pain sex addiction brings to their lives.

"Sex Addiction-Induced Trauma is both the impact and traumatic symptoms and consequences from that impact"
— Dr. Omar Minwalla