Specialties & Approach
My Specialties
I specialize in working with emerging adults, which means I’m here to help you build the foundation of your adult life while you earn a college degree, develop your career, find your people, and start a family. This time of life is filled with transitions and challenges, which is why mental health issues often arise during the late teens, 20s and 30s.
At this life stage, people often find themselves feeling anxious, depressed, lonely, lost, and disconnected from themselves and others. I’m drawn to working with emerging adults because along with all of the uncertainty this time of life brings, there is immense opportunity for change and growth as you discover who you are, what you value, and how to create and sustain meaningful relationships.
My Approach
I strive to build a strong and collaborative therapeutic relationship with you by taking a warm, curious, accepting, and direct stance. I will both validate and affirm your experiences while challenging you to grow. I will help you develop awareness of the root of your distress, which often stems from how you relate to yourself and others.
Together, we will identify how your patterns developed in the context of your family, community, and systems of oppression in society. We will examine how these patterns might hold you back from feeling worthwhile, developing meaningful relationships, and pursuing your values. I will encourage you to shift towards healthier ways of relating to others and to your own thoughts, feelings, body, and identities.
I integrate therapeutic techniques that are supported by research and adapt them to your unique needs, therapeutic goals, and cultural identities. Psychodynamic and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) approaches effectively treat a broad-range of mental health concerns. I primarily draw from the psychodynamic and CBT approaches of Time-Limited Dynamic Psychotherapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy can help you:
Identify what truly matters to you in life and take action toward your values.
Liberate yourself form patterns of avoidance and inaction.
Be in the present moment and focus less on the past and future.
Realize that thoughts and feelings do not define who you are or what is true.
Time-Limited Dynamic Psychotherapy can help you:
Identify relational patterns that used to protect you but no longer serve you.
Find out how your efforts to keep people close might push them away.
Improve the quality of your relationships by behaving more authentically.
Change the way you experience and understand yourself.