Over the past 20 years, my experiences across life, business, and community mental health have shaped not only the professional I’ve become, but also how I understand people and the complexity of their stories. People are more than their symptoms. We often come to therapy because something in life isn’t working—anxiety, depression, loneliness, addiction, relationship difficulties, questions of identity or faith, or simply a persistent sense that something feels off. These struggles matter, but they rarely tell the whole story. I’m interested in what lies beneath the experiences that have shaped you, the patterns that keep repeating, and the ways you’ve learned to relate to yourself and others.
Here are some of the questions that inform how I approach therapy: What has shaped the way you experience yourself? Why do certain patterns keep repeating? What happens when you get close to others? What do you fear, desire, avoid, or protect yourself from? And what might become possible if you understood yourself and others more deeply?
My work is grounded primarily in relational psychodynamic therapy, which means we pay attention not only to what is happening in your life today, but also to the experiences, relationships, and patterns that have shaped who you have become.
Many of the ways we learn to protect ourselves make sense in the context in which they developed. But patterns that once helped us survive, belong, or preserve important relationships can outlive their usefulness, leaving us stuck in ways of relating to ourselves and others that no longer serve us. Therapy gives us a place to become curious about those patterns rather than simply judging or trying to eliminate them.
I see you as a whole person from a biopsychosocial lens, with a unique story that deserves to be heard and understood. I don't see my role as simply giving advice or teaching you how to think differently. Instead, we work together to understand your inner world—your emotions, relationships, defenses, desires, contradictions, and the ways you have learned to relate to yourself and others. Every person is distinctive and complex, which compels flexible tailoring of my therapeutic style to each person and specific problem within their context, while tapping into several psychological ideas, theoretical approaches and therapeutic techniques to be of most help to a diverse pool of clients.
The relationship we develop in therapy is also part of the work. The patterns that shape relationships outside the therapy room can sometimes emerge between therapist and client, giving us an opportunity to notice and understand them together.
Insight matters, but insight alone isn't the goal. The hope is that greater self-understanding creates greater freedom: more freedom to choose rather than simply react, to connect rather than protect, and to live in ways that feel increasingly authentic to who you are and who you are becoming.
I earned my Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology from The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology, where my training emphasized the complexity of human development, relationships, trauma, culture, sexuality, spirituality, and the ways our stories shape our psychological lives. My clinical experience has included working with adolescents and adults in community mental health, school-based settings, and private practice, including work at MultiCare Behavioral Health and Orting High School. These experiences have allowed me to sit with people across a wide range of circumstances and struggles and have continually reinforced something I consider fundamental to therapy: People need more than techniques. They need to be known. My clinical work is informed by psychodynamic and relational thinking while also drawing from trauma-informed, person-centered, cognitive-behavioral, mindfulness-based, and other evidence-informed approaches when they are useful to the individual sitting across from me. Therapy shouldn't force you into a predetermined framework. Every person brings a different history, personality, culture, set of relationships, beliefs, and way of experiencing the world. Therapy should be responsive to that complexity. For those who want it to be, faith and spirituality can also have a meaningful place in therapy. Questions of belief, doubt, meaning, morality, religious experience, spiritual wounds, and the relationship between faith and psychological life can be explored openly and thoughtfully.
I want therapy to be a place where you don't have to present a polished version of yourself. There can be room for the parts of you that are confident and uncertain, hopeful and discouraged, admirable and difficult, the parts you understand and the parts you don't yet understand. We can become curious about all of it. My goal is to offer a relationship in which you feel genuinely seen, understood, challenged when helpful, and supported as you develop a deeper understanding of yourself and discover new possibilities for how you want to live.
My expanding experiences enhance my ability to provide diverse and tailored support to those in need, deepening my expertise in mental health diagnoses, interventions, and treatments, reinforcing my commitment to patient care and clinical excellence. I am committed to therapeutic relations and ongoing professional development, using best evidence-based practices.