What is my therapeutic framework?
My work is grounded in both client-centered and psychodynamic approaches. This means I meet you with unconditional positive regard while also exploring how your early experiences continue to shape your beliefs, behaviors, and relationships today.
Depending on your needs, I also integrate tools from:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): to help identify and reframe unhelpful thought patterns
Mindfulness-Based Practices: to support presence, emotional regulation, and a deeper connection to yourself
Therapy with me is never one-size-fits-all. I tailor my approach to meet you. Your needs, your pace, your story, so that the work we do is as individualized and meaningful as you are.
What it’s like to be in therapy with me?
Most people reach out for therapy when something just isn’t working. Maybe you feel stuck. Maybe you're caught in the same patterns, unsure why they keep repeating, or how to shift them. My role is to help you slow down, get curious, and start making sense of what’s beneath the surface.
Together, we’ll explore how your past experiences and relationships have shaped how you move through the world today. My hope is that, through this process, you’ll begin to see yourself more clearly, not with judgment, but with understanding. With that insight comes self-compassion, and from there, the possibility for meaningful change.
Therapy with me is not about “fixing” you. It’s about reconnecting with the parts of yourself that have been silenced, overlooked, or misunderstood and learning how to live with more clarity, intention, and wholeness.
How do I approach therapy?
I strive to create a space that is steady, supportive, and deeply respectful. Therapy works best when it’s rooted in a genuine relationship, and that begins with me getting to know how you see the world. You are the expert on your own experience. I want to understand it through your lens.
As our work unfolds, I’ll bring curiosity, compassion, and sometimes gentle challenge. I believe that growth often happens in the tension between being fully accepted and being lovingly invited to stretch.
When appropriate, I bring humor into the room, not to distract from the hard things, but to make the work human, grounded, and a bit more manageable. I often tell clients that therapy asks a lot of you: to show up, to feel things you’ve tried not to feel, to tell the truth. But my job is to help you do that in a way that feels manageable, where you leave each session intact, with your skin on.
Why I Became a Therapist
I chose to become a therapist for many reasons and some were deeply personal. One of the most pivotal was my own experience in therapy, where, for the first time in my life, I felt truly seen.
As the daughter of immigrants, I’ve lived the complexities of intergenerational trauma firsthand. It shaped how I moved through the world, navigating cultural expectations, wrestling with belonging, and often feeling like an outsider. I also live with ADHD, which adds another layer to how I experience the world: more sensitivity, more stimulation, more nonlinear thinking and, at times, more internalized shame.
My own healing journey has required deep somatic work, honest self-reflection, and the slow, intentional process of reconnecting with myself and not by “fixing” who I am, but by unlearning the idea that I ever needed to.
I know what it’s like to feel like you don’t quite fit, to question your worth, and to carry the silent weight of other people’s expectations.
Today, I’m honored to sit with others as they begin (or continue) their own journey and supporting them in honoring their stories, naming their wants and needs, and discovering the truth that so many of us have long doubted:
You are enough.
Education + Licensure
B.A. in Social Work, University of Wisconsin, Madison 1985
M.S. in Social Work, University of Wisconsin, Madison 1987
Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Certificate, Naropa University 2023
LCSW Colorado and Illinois