Areas of Focus
Anxiety & Burnout
Much of my work involves vitality gardening, or bringing out aliveness that has been trapped beneath a layer of fear and hypervigilance. I provide a safe and supportive container where your fears can be faced, experienced, processed, and outgrown. With less fear, burnout usually evaporates and vitality reemerges. Fears recede in significance, and other emotions can emerge, such as sadness, anger, gratitude, love, joy, awe, and wonder. Life expands and we gain access to more information and options.
Depression
Feeling depressed, exhausted, collapsed, hopeless, or stuck? Somatic therapy can reconnect you to your vitality and provide a jumpstart to your life force energy. Often the work involves grieving or letting go of something that is burdening your nervous system and cutting you off from new life. Some of the work is also straight-forward encouragement and accountability for things like exercise and mindfulness that are more effective in the long-term than anti-depressants.
Coaching
I think of coaching as life design from the inside-out. Coaching is solution-oriented, forward-looking, and shorter-term in nature. Coaching leverages your strengths and abilities and fills in any deficits. I help you to build effective systems and take the bold steps needed to move your life forward in the right direction. Coaching is best suited to professionals and high-functioning clients wishing to take things to the next level. Coaching is not therapy. If therapy appears necessary, I will recommend local services to you.
Relationships
Healthy relating includes effective communication of needs, greater levels of intimacy and self-expression, healthy boundaries, and interdependence, which replaces either co-dependence or isolation. Therapeutic relationships are often cited as “the first place I could be my full self.” This kind of intimate relationship forms a model that can be used in the outside world. Many other symptoms subside when you feel less lonely or conflicted and get more out of your relationships.
Highly Sensitive Person
The most creative and artistic souls tend to be highly sensitive people, or “HSP”, as described by Dr. Elaine Aron. I identify personally as an HSP and greatly enjoy working with other HSPs. Often the work for HSPs is to own their sensitive nature and to steward it effectively in the world. HSPs can be more easily overstimulated than others, and learning to track sensory overwhelm and take steps to prevent it can be life changing. Common work involves self esteem, boundary setting, taking risks, and building structure.
Imposter Syndrome
Character armor, false self, protectors, persona, ego defenses, etc. There are many terms to describe the fear-based protective structure that limits and protects our authenticity. Somatic work is ideally suited to deepen awareness of core authenticity or true self, which lessens reliance on the protective layer. When you are more in touch with sensations and emotions, you gain access to a foundation of self esteem, a source of energy, and a stream of information that guides you toward the life you actually want.
Pain & Health Issues
Recent discoveries in pain research indicate that many conditions are not caused by structural damage to the body, but by overall sensitization of the nervous system. Conditions amenable to somatic psychotherapy include back and neck pain, headaches and migraines, tendonitis, fibromyalgia, CRPS, IBS, RSI, dizziness, tinnitus, and more. The key to my approach is bottom-up somatic processing where you are guided into deeper states of relaxation and non-judgmental awareness, where sensations can be fully experienced, accepted and re-coded as safe.
Sexuality
Sexuality is a core aspect of our identity that is usually shamed, repressed, and traumatized. Many people have an aspect of their sexuality that they find difficult to accept or believe others will not accept. Therapy is an ideal venue to surface and integrate these natural inclinations in a non-judgmental and sex-positive setting. The acceptance and liberation of sexuality can lead to the resolution of other symptoms such as pain, anxiety, depression, and insomnia. I commonly work with erectile dysfunction by treating the anxiety that is blocking arousal.
LGBTQ+
I operate from an affirmative and non-judgmental stance toward all forms of sexual, gender, and relationship expression. Many of my clients identify as LGBTQ+, gender-fluid, or relationship non-conforming. Common areas of focus include identity-based trauma, internalized oppression such as homophobia, ethical non-monogamy, and issues arising from holding a non-traditional identity. Symptoms such as anxiety, depression, pain, and insomnia often reflect identity-based trauma and resolve with a greater degree of acceptance and support.
Neurodivergence
I work with many adults and teenagers who have ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, learning difficulties, giftedness, and sensory processing disorders. I work from an affirming stance where differences are respected as a source of uniqueness and value. This approach builds self-acceptance, self-esteem, and self-understanding, and identifies areas where skill development can be beneficial. Work focuses on somatic, emotional, and social processing, which increases executive functioning and the ability to access social networks.
Teenagers
I work with gifted, highly creative, or high-potential teenagers dealing with anxiety, depression, failure-to-launch, identity crisis, OCD, ADHD, autism spectrum, and mind-body issues. I offer a range of modalities that include play, art, mindfulness, and movement. Often teenagers need an outside venue to develop an aspect of themselves that has been struggling to emerge in family and peer settings. Once this aspect of identity is unlocked, it becomes easier for them to accept responsibilities and move forward into adulthood and generativity.
Psychedelic Integration
Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapies are being evaluated for depression, PTSD, chronic pain, couples therapy, and more. Select medicines are being fast-tracked for FDA approval and are already legal in many localities. Somatic psychotherapy pairs extremely well with psychedelics to facilitate the process of healing and integration. I do not work directly with any medicines, but I can help you prepare for and integrate treatments that are performed elsewhere. It is important that you do your own research and seek appropriate medical advice.