Treatment
My work is grounded in evidence-based psychotherapy, and I have training or extensive self-study in several well-established treatment approaches outlined below.
Depending on your needs, we may work within a full, structured treatment model, or we may integrate specific elements from these approaches into a more individualized therapy process.
This flexibility allows treatment to be both clinically effective and tailored to your goals, body-brain connection, life context, and readiness for change. Throughout our work, the focus remains on helping you build insight, skills, and capacity in ways that are practical, ethical, and sustainable.
Below, you can learn more about each treatment approach and how it may be used in our work together.
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an evidence-based form of behavioral therapy that helps people develop psychological flexibility by learning to accept difficult internal experiences (such as thoughts, feelings, and sensations) while committing to actions that align with their values. Rather than trying to eliminate uncomfortable thoughts or emotions, ACT supports clients in observing them with mindfulness and making room for them, so they can focus energy on meaningful life directions and practical behavior changes.
In ACT, we’ll work together to clarify your core values, notice patterns of avoidance, and practice skills like mindful awareness, cognitive defusion (learning to see thoughts/emotions/urges as information rather than facts), and committed action toward valued goals. This approach helps reduce the impact of anxiety, worry, and emotional reactivity by shifting the relationship people have with their internal experience, strengthening resilience and adaptive functioning in daily life.
Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR)
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy is an evidence-based psychotherapy approach designed to help people process and heal from traumatic memories and distressing life experiences. In EMDR therapy, I guide you through a structured sequence of phases in which you focus on trauma-related thoughts, sensations, and beliefs while also using bilateral stimulation. Bilateral stimulation (BLS) is a type of eye movements, tones, or tapping that can support the brain’s natural information-processing system. This process helps reduce the emotional intensity of traumatic memories, allowing those experiences to become integrated as part of the your past rather than a source of persistent distress.
EMDR is widely recognized by major health organizations as an effective trauma-focused treatment, particularly for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and has been shown to support recovery from anxiety, panic, phobias, grief, and other stress-related conditions. The therapy involves eight phases that include: psychoeducation, history taking, preparation, desensitization, and reevaluation. It can also be used on present day stressors or to prepare for future events, and can often achieve meaningful change in fewer sessions than traditional talk therapy by helping you directly reprocess painful memories and reframe limiting beliefs.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy is a compassionate, evidence-informed approach that understands the mind as naturally made up of multiple parts that has its own feelings, beliefs, and roles, as well as a core Self that can lead from curiosity and connection. Rather than treating symptoms alone, I use IFS to help you observe and relate to their inner parts (such as protectors, managers, or exiles) with acceptance and understanding, so you can uncover the intentions behind those parts and shift unhelpful patterns. This approach supports greater emotional balance, self-compassion, and resilience by helping people move from reactive survival modes into mindful, connected functioning.
In IFS, we’ll work together to help the client access their Self-leadership. This refers to a grounded, present, and compassionate state from which you are able to hear, unburden, and integrate your parts. By developing a respectful internal dialogue and realigning conflicted parts, clients often experience reduced inner conflict, stronger self-trust, improved relationships, and increased capacity for managing stress. IFS is widely used for anxiety, depression, trauma, self-criticism, and relational difficulties because it offers a clear map for exploring internal experience without judgment.
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) is an evidence-based, trauma-focused form of cognitive-behavioral therapy designed to help people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other traumatic stress symptoms. The goal is to understand and change the unhelpful thoughts and beliefs that maintain trauma symptoms. In CPT, I’ll guide you in examining how trauma has affected your beliefs about yourself, others, and the world, especially the “stuck points” or inaccurate interpretations that keep distress and avoidance alive. Through structured sessions, you’ll learn to evaluate and reframe these thoughts into more balanced and adaptive perspectives, which supports reduced PTSD symptoms and improved functioning.
CPT typically includes psychoeducation about trauma and stress responses, identifying maladaptive thinking patterns, and practicing new thinking strategies both in sessions and through between-session assignments. It is a more structured therapy usually delivered in about 12 sessions and has strong research support as a first-line treatment for PTSD across diverse trauma populations.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a widely used, evidence-based form of psychotherapy that helps people understand and change the connection between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Rather than focusing only on symptoms, I use CBT to help clients identify unhelpful thinking patterns and behavioral responses, examine the assumptions that underlie them, and practice more balanced, adaptive ways of interpreting and responding to everyday situations. This structured, goal-oriented approach supports people in reducing anxiety, depression, stress, and other forms of emotional distress by building practical skills they can apply in real time.
In CBT, we work collaboratively to set clear treatment goals, explore how automatic thoughts influence emotions and actions, and experiment with alternative thoughts and behaviors in and outside of sessions. By repeatedly practicing these new ways of thinking and acting, clients often experience improved emotional regulation, decreased avoidance, and increased confidence in managing life’s challenges.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is an evidence-based, skills-focused form of psychotherapy designed to help people who experience intense emotions, emotional dysregulation, and difficulty coping under stress. Originally developed by Marsha Linehan, DBT is rooted in cognitive behavioral therapy while emphasizing a balance between acceptance and change. This approach helps clients validate their internal experiences while also building practical tools to create meaningful behavioral change.
DBT focuses on developing four core skill areas: mindfulness, emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness. Treatment often includes individual therapy and structured skills training, supporting clients in reducing impulsive or self-destructive behaviors, improving emotional stability, and strengthening relationships. In practice, DBT helps people respond to stress and emotional pain with greater clarity, flexibility, and effectiveness, rather than reacting on autopilot.
While I do not offer formally structured DBT treatment, I use the many skills and principles in my work with clients.
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
Prolonged Exposure (PE) Therapy is a trauma-focused, evidence-based treatment designed to help people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) reduce avoidance, fear, and distress associated with traumatic memories, feelings, and situations. Rather than avoiding reminders of the trauma, PE supports clients in gradually facing trauma-related thoughts and safe situations in a structured, supportive way; this can help decrease symptoms over time and increase emotional regulation and mastery.
In PE, we’ll work together gently approach what you’ve been avoiding through repeated, graduated practice of:
Imaginal exposure (talking through the trauma memory in detail) helps reduce fear and unwanted memories by processing them in safety.
In vivo exposure involves confronting real-world situations you’ve been avoiding because of trauma reminders.
The goal of PE is to help your brain learn that feared reminders are manageable, which lowers avoidance and strengthens coping, leading to improved daily functioning and quality of life. PE is considered a first-line, trauma-focused psychotherapy for PTSD and has strong research support for reducing PTSD symptoms and related distress when delivered by a trained clinician.
Prolonged Exposure
Family Systems Therapy is an evidence-based approach that understands emotional distress, stress responses, and patterns of coping within the context of relationships and family systems. Rather than viewing symptoms as belonging to one individual alone, this approach recognizes that people are shaped by ongoing relational dynamics, roles, and expectations across generations.
Originally developed by Murray Bowen, Family Systems Therapy focuses on increasing awareness of how family patterns influence emotional regulation, conflict, anxiety, boundaries, and decision-making. Therapy supports individuals, couples, or families in identifying these patterns, understanding how they developed, and gently shifting them in more intentional and flexible ways.
In my work, Family Systems Therapy is used to help clients clarify their roles in relationships, reduce reactivity, strengthen boundaries, and build greater emotional differentiation with the goal of staying connected to others without losing themselves in the process.