Healing Process
I provide therapy services for individuals of all ages, couples, and families, offering both in-person and telehealth sessions. My specialization lies in addressing all forms of trauma and adversity, past and present. I also offer support for our youth and their families who are navigating emotional and neurodivergent challenges resulting from anxiety, autism, and ADHD.
My therapeutic approach focuses on the nervous system as both a holder of trauma and unmet developmental needs, as well as a medium for healing. Moreover, just as each of us carries our own unique identity and imprint of past traumas, we also journey on a path of healing that reflects our individuality. At my practice, I am committed to working at your pace and honoring your individual needs every step of the way. We’ll work together to find the best approach for you, ensuring safety and connection from the beginning.
Therapy Types and Modalities
EMDR is an evidence-based therapy that has been used to treat trauma since the 1990s. EMDR therapy uses bilateral stimulation (typically eye movements, sounds or taps) to facilitate the accessing and processing of traumatic memories that are stored in the brain so that an integrated resolution can occur. Traditional EMDR therapy has 8 phases which include history-taking, preparation, identifying targets, reprocessing of traumatic material, and the installation of positive beliefs following desensitization.
Identifying targeted memories to process with EMDR requires an awareness of several aspects of our traumatic experience including our beliefs, emotions, images, and body sensations that become activated when we think about the traumatic event. When EMDR is successful, we experience a felt-sense that the traumatic experience is finally in the past, resulting in the relief of emotional distress and release of negative thinking about ourselves, others and the world.
Because traditional EMDR may be too overwhelming and even counterproductive for symptoms of complex trauma, we have the option to utilize a more nuanced EMDR therapy which focuses more on the somatic process of trauma and less on an identified traumatic memory as the target. Somatic EMDR offers more flexibility to pause in between sets of bilateral processing, to notice our experience and to take the time to attend to whatever may be coming up in the body while processing traumatic material. Somatic tools can include the use of intentional movement, poses, and breathwork and they are often resources that can be practiced at home as well to cope with trauma and find relief. The act of noticing (and learning how to “notice the noticing”) is a remarkable resource in and of itself to tolerate and shift emotional pain. It can feel empowering and hopeful to be able to connect with our nervous system right here and now with a felt sense of safety and compassion.
Founded by Laurel Parnell, Attachment-focused EMDR utilizes traditional EMDR bilateral stimulation to target primarily emotional pain, anxiety and deep loneliness from childhood attachment injuries. When we did not have enough love, acceptance, co-regulation, healthy boundaries, and/or security to be able to learn about ourselves and others, we may be successful and high-functioning in our adult life but at the same time completely shattered in relationships and unable to feel joy. The pain from attachment trauma is deeply entrenched into our identity and self-image can develop into dissociation, addictions, compulsions, avoidance and self-sabotage behaviors. Attachment-focused EMDR helps us recognize these wounds and access the qualities of safety, security, love, wisdom and protection from within for repair and healing.
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy combines somatic and cognitive techniques to treat trauma. We will work collaboratively to cultivate safety and stabilization, utilize tools to access and process trauma-related somatic, emotional and cognitive distress and build somatic resources for integration. In contrast to traditional EMDR, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy is slower paced and does not use bilateral stimulation for processing trauma. As with other somatic therapies, SP techniques include slowing down, noticing the body along with emotions, images and cognitions, and utilizing movement and breathwork exercises to understand and heal our trauma-related distress.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Ego State Therapy are similar experiential approaches that focus on parts or “ego states” as being unique adaptations in response to our trauma. The more complex our trauma, the more extreme, rigid, or demanding our parts are, resulting in additional suffering we experience on top of the pain of unprocessed trauma. Both modalities hold the idea that there are no “bad” parts, only parts trying to protect us by responding to and/or managing what happened to us. While IFS has a well-defined definition of parts and their functions (e.g., “exiles”, “managers” and “firefighters”), Ego State Therapy has a broader way of identifying parts, describing them as “ego states” based on situational roles (e.g., “child-like,” “parent-like” or “adult-like” states). Both approaches have a similar goal of identifying, getting to know and working with our parts from a “Self” place of compassion, creativity, curiosity and courage necessary for healing.
EFT is an alternative therapy that involves tapping on the body, such as the face, collarbone, under the arm and the top of the head, to release specific distressing emotions, thoughts and images. This method is straightforward and can be practiced in between therapy sessions to improve distress tolerance and manage trauma symptoms. It can be utilized in conjunction with other somatic practices that encourage recognizing and embracing discomfort in a manner that promotes relief.
