My Approach to Helping
Our work together relies on a trusting, safe relationship. It's vital that you have an environment where you don't feel judged, and that you can experience aspects of yourself you're figuring out or still discovering. I'm particularly interested in helping you look at how you experience yourself and your relationships with important people in your life.
I use feminist and queer theory to gently challenge and acknowledge how our contexts shape us. Sometimes, therapy is about going into your past and connecting it with how you experience your life now, and other times it's about holding space for something you're going through in the present and offering support.
More Info About My Practice
I work with you to discern what you want to get out of therapy, and blend an approach that considers what works on the long. This might mean reducing symptoms with coping skills now, and longterm work understanding where those symptoms came from in the first place by delving into your past.
My View on the Nature of 'Disorders'
Many of what are termed disorders can be characterized as reasonable human responses to hard experiences, or the spectrum of neurodiversity. I'm affirming of folks that identify as neurodivergent, and feel strongly that the different sensory and perceptive experiences we have are a valuable form of diversity in our society. I don't subscribe to a 'disease' or 'disorder' model when it comes to mental health.
What the discipline broadly considers as "disorders" can be helpful information in terms of how symptoms might cluster together, but doesn't have any bearing on someone's value or worth. Learning that complex PTSD often results in a distorted perception of self-worth can be really useful, or that folks with ADHD might experience criticism in a different way can be helpful as we understand ourselves. Diagnoses can be helpful as a shorthand for what your experience is like (or where it came from), but in general, I see them as culturally constructed definitions. It's ALWAYS more helpful to go in with curiosity about the quality of each person's experience, what they themselves need, and what a diagnosis might do to help them or harm them; rather than starting with the lens of what a 'disorder' is.
Clinicians who offer sliding scale payment structures may offer lower or reduced fees based on an individual's ability to pay. Please contact this clinician for more details regarding their fees or sliding scale policy.
