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.

A note about training & professional development:

Therapists often learn the approaches they use through a combination of formal training programs, continuing education, consultation, and ongoing professional study. Some of the approaches listed on this page reflect therapies in which I have completed formal training (EMDR, CPT, PE, CBT), while others reflect areas where I have pursued extensive self-study and continuing education as part of my professional development.

In practice, therapy is rarely limited to one model. Instead, I draw from multiple evidence-informed approaches and integrate them in ways that best support each person’s goals and needs.

I am committed to ongoing learning and regularly participate in professional education to deepen my understanding of the approaches I use. When a situation would benefit from a type of care outside my training or scope of practice, I will talk with you about appropriate referrals or additional resources.

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.

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.

You can find a deep-dive into ACT here if you’d like to learn more.

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.

You can find a deep-dive into EMDR here if you’d like to learn more.

Deep-Brain Reorienting (DBR)

Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) is a newer, neuroscience-informed trauma therapy that focuses on the very early “shock response” in the brain and body that occurs when something overwhelming happens, often before we are consciously aware of emotions or thoughts.

Rather than focusing primarily on thoughts or narratives about the event, DBR gently tracks subtle sensations in the head, neck, and body that reflect the brain’s first orienting response to threat or attachment disruption. Working with these early physiological responses can help the nervous system gradually release the shock that keeps some traumatic experiences feeling “stuck.”

Many people find DBR helpful for experiences that feel difficult to put into words or that continue to affect them at a deep emotional or bodily level. In my practice, DBR may be used alongside other trauma therapies such as EMDR, helping support the brain and body in processing difficult experiences in a careful and regulated way.

You can find a deep-dive into DBR here if you’d like to learn more.

Internal Family Systems (IFS)

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.

You can find a deep-dive into IFS here if you’d like to learn more.

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.

You can find a deep-dive into CPT here if you’d like to learn more.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

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.

You can find a deep-dive into CBT here if you’d like to learn more.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)

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. 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.

You can find a deep-dive into DBT here if you’d like to learn more.

Prolonged Exposure (PE)

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.

You can find a deep-dive into PE here if you’d like to learn more.

Family Systems

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.

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.

You can find a deep-dive into Family Systems Therapy here if you’d like to learn more.

Attachment-Informed Therapy

Attachment-informed therapy explores how our early relationships shape the ways we experience trust, closeness, conflict, and emotional safety with others. These patterns often develop early in life and can continue to influence how we respond in relationships, especially during moments of stress, vulnerability, or uncertainty.

In therapy, we may gently explore these patterns and notice how they show up in your current relationships, including the therapeutic relationship itself. This can help create new experiences of safety, communication, and emotional understanding that support healthier ways of relating to yourself and others.

While I am informed by attachment theory and relational approaches, I do not practice a formal attachment therapy model. Instead, attachment concepts are integrated into therapy alongside other evidence-based approaches such as ACT, CBT, EMDR, and trauma-informed work.

You can find a deep-dive into Attachment Therapy here if you’d like to learn more.

Sand Tray Interventions

Sand tray interventions are a type of experiential and expressive practice that allows people to explore thoughts, emotions, relationships, and life experiences using visual symbols rather than relying only on words. Sometimes complex or overwhelming experiences are easier to understand when they are represented visually.

In sand tray work, we use small figures or objects to represent people, emotions, memories, or different parts of a situation. Arranging these symbols can help reveal patterns, deepen insight, and support the processing of experiences that may feel difficult to describe.

In my practice, sand tray is adapted for online therapy. Clients may use objects they already have available at home, or choose images or symbols during our session to represent different elements of their experience. We then explore what emerges together.

Sand tray can support both resourcing—identifying strengths, supports, and internal resources—and reprocessing, helping integrate difficult experiences in a safe and creative way.

You can find a deep-dive into Sand Tray Interventions here if you’d like to learn more.