My Approach
“There’s no liberation without actually leaning forward and looking at the things that we habitually run away from, in order to see things as they really are.”
I work from a combination of models through a trauma-informed, liberatory lens.
“ Nothing happens in isolation. There is always a squad, collaborators, a body that supports change occurring.”
Within each therapy relationship we will discover what is helpful from my training for your lived experience. We’ll also work together to access your own embodied wisdom to guide the process. I see psychotherapy as a collaborative, creative process that develops uniquely within in each relationship between participants and therapist.
Seeing ourselves, our patterns, our pain, and our potential clearly is not a process we can do alone. My approach is rooted in the belief that healing and growth is a “we” process not a “me” process. Meaning, we need relationship with safe and trusted others who see us, help us see ourselves, and hold the work with us. In the isolation of an individualist culture, we often lack the built-in ritual and community that facilitates such a process. Therapy can be a place to practice the kind of being together that we need in a safe enough, supportive and focused environment.
As Smruti Desai says, systemic oppression and the harms of individualism cannot be solved by individual therapy. Still, therapy can be one place where we both investigate our part in, and tend to the ways we are impacted by, oppressive heirarchical systems.
I believe the therapist’s integrity matters deeply to the process, and I’m committed to regularly investigating and uprooting white supremacist and capitalist ideas of healing and well-being from my practice. I grieve the loss of healing traditions and rituals that could have been handed down to me ancestrally through my bloodline and am committed to learning from those whose traditions are more intact.
Some of the models I draw from include: the wisdom of the body, nature, creative process, Indigenous wisdoms regarding grief and loss, relational psychodynamic therapy, liberation psychology, polyvagal theory, psychoanalytic principles, internal family systems, attachment theory, neurobiology, somatic experiencing, queer theory and systems theory.
I am a member of the Northwest Alliance for Psychoanalytic Study and the Center for Object Relations, and consistently pursue continuing education in trauma treatment across various modalities.