My Approach

My role is to help you access your Self: your inner truth, inner passion, and inner compass. Therefore, my approach is a co-creation between you, the client, and myself. I combine my knowledge of evidence-based approaches with your wisdom, experience, knowledge, and goals.

Internal Family Systems

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

-Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

  • Internal Family Systems (IFS), developed as a therapeutic approach by Richard Schwartz in the 1980s, views the mind as a collection of parts. This theory is supported by research on the neuroanatomy of our brain, which demonstrates that our brain is composed of distinct parts with distinct roles. It’s easy to see how we contain parts within ourselves; just consider a time you simultaneously held contradicting thoughts (i.e., a part of me wants to leave this relationship; a part of me wants to stay in this relationship).

    Parts work in therapy and coaching involves identifying prominent parts, allowing the parts to be present, listening to the parts, and lovingly communicating with the parts. We will work together to help you become the compassionate leader to the system of your parts, operating from the understanding that there are no bad parts within yourself. Instead, we will work to see how parts that are causing disruption in your life (drinking part, procrastination part, self-sabotage part, self-critical part) are trying to help you, but are still operating as if in past trauma, hurt, or fear.

Body-Based

Your existence is a testament to the body wisdom of your ancestors.

-Dalia Kinsey, Decolonizing Wellness

If you’re willing to pay attention to and dialogue with what’s happening inside of you, you’ll find that your body already knows the answers about how to live a full, present, connected, and healthy life.

-Hillary L. McBride, The Wisdom of Your Body

  • Conscious thought can process about 50 bits of information per second, while our senses process 11 million bits of information per second. Our body receives, processes, and stores through the form of sensation in the nervous system, which means that our body is full of wisdom, as well as stress and unresolved trauma. A body-based approach in therapy and coaching involves awareness-building, processing, and soothing sensation in the body.

Cognitive-Behavioral

When we believe in our thoughts, when we tell ourselves a story, we suffer. My husband doesn’t respect me; I should be thinner. Those are stories. When there’s no story, there’s no suffering

-Byron Katie, Loving What Is

  • Cognitive-behavioral therapy focuses on the interconnected relationship between our thoughts, behaviors, and emotion. A cognitive-behavioral approach recognizes that we can shift our emotional experience by changing our relationship with our thoughts and making changes in our behaviors. Through questioning and examining distressing thinking, our emotions and behaviors shift. Likewise, though implementation of gradual and systematic behavior changes supported by evidence-based change strategies, our emotions and thoughts shift.

Values-Based

Every time you're given a choice between disappointing someone else and disappointing yourself, your duty is to disappoint that someone else.

-Glennon Doyle, Untamed

  • Our values are the compass within ourselves that direct us to where we must go. Sometimes, though, that compass is blurred with the values passed on from families, culture, or systems, which often lead us down a path of confusion, guilt, and disillusionment. Values-based approaches focus on clarifying personal values, identifying areas of misalignment, and moving in the direction of values.

Spiritual

When we become spiritually aware—through synchronicity, for example—it’s a sign that despite the uncertainty, we are aligned with the force of life.

-Lisa Miller, The Awakened Brain

  • Spirituality simply refers to the connection and relationship with something bigger than our selves. Lisa Miller, Professor of Psychology at Columbia University and founder of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute, found in her research that we are hardwired to be spiritual beings. Additionally, she found spirituality to be highly impactful in preventing and healing depression and addiction. I will meet you where you are at with spirituality and will never force you into anything you don’t feel is true for you.

Systemically Aware

“Systems do not maintain themselves; even our lack of intervention is an act of maintenance. Every structure in every society is upheld by the active and passive assistance of other human beings.”

-Sonya Renee Taylor, The Body Is Not an Apology

“I could never trust anyone who’s well adjusted to a sick society.”

-Andrea Gibson

  • The field of Psychology has a dark past (and present) of pathologizing individuals. If we closely enough, we can always find that behaviors, thoughts, and emotions always make sense. Many people, especially minority groups, have not been helped by traditional psychological approaches that failed to recognize individual wisdom and systemic trauma.