How I work
The approaches I draw on, and how each one actually works in a session.
I don’t practise one method and fit people to it. I was trained in several, and which ones we use depends on what you bring and how you work — that usually becomes clear over the first few sessions rather than in a first conversation.
In practice these overlap more than a list suggests. A session might be mostly talking about a relationship, and draw on psychodynamic thinking about where the pattern started, a relational eye on what is happening between us as we discuss it, and a feminist reading of the expectations underneath it. EMDR is the one that looks visibly different from the others, and even that sits inside the same relationship rather than replacing it.
If you already know you want a particular approach, say so — plenty of people arrive having researched EMDR specifically. If you have no idea, that is completely normal and not something you need to resolve before starting.
EMDR Therapy
A therapy that helps the nervous system finish processing experiences that got stuck.
Trauma-Informed Therapy
Working in a way that assumes what happened to you shaped how you are here, and doesn’t ask you to override it.
Psychodynamic Therapy
Looking at where a pattern came from, not only at how to manage it.
Relational Therapy
Using what happens between us as real information about what happens everywhere else.
Feminist Therapy
Taking seriously that some of what you are carrying was handed to you.
Strengths-Based Therapy
Starting from what you already survived and already know how to do.
Not sure which of these fits? That is what a consultation is for. You don’t need to arrive with a preference.
Do I need to choose an approach before we start?
No. Most people don’t, and I would be sceptical of a therapist who asked you to. I spend the first few sessions understanding what you are bringing, and we decide together from there.
Do you use more than one approach with the same person?
Almost always. These are ways of thinking and working rather than separate treatments, and most sessions draw on several at once. EMDR is the one exception in that it has a distinct structure, and we would agree to begin it deliberately rather than drift into it.
Interested in working together?
Online sessions for adults in Pennsylvania and Virginia. $160 per 50 minute session.