How I Work

When you’ve done the work, but you’re still treading water just to stay afloat.

Many people come to me after years of traditional therapy. They might have moved out of an immediate crisis or learned how to manage their symptoms, but they feel like they are simply treading water. The core of the pain is still lurking in the depths, requiring constant energy to keep it at bay.

I believe—and have experienced myself—that if we haven’t fully processed an experience, we often just find clever ways to bury it. We find tools to bring the symptoms down, but the inflammation remains.

What does it mean to 'process' pain?

I see unprocessed pain like a small splinter under the skin. You can try to ignore it, but the area stays inflamed until the splinter is removed.

In our culture, we are taught that pushing away, shutting down, or "moving on" is how we get over things. Somatic therapy is the opposite: it is about slowly turning around and moving toward the discomfort.

A safe, gentle approach to the "felt sense."

If turning toward your pain sounds terrifying, please know that we do this in a very slow, gentle, and titrated way.

This is not about being overwhelmed or "blowing up" your nervous system. If you leave a session feeling completely blown out, it defeats the purpose of the therapy. Instead, we work with the felt sense—that uncomfortable tightness in your chest, the knot in your belly, or the restriction in your throat.

Is this touch-based therapy? People often ask if somatic therapy involves movement or touch. It does not have to. It is about changing your relationship to your internal discomfort, and learning to tune in to the felt internal sense. Instead of "I have to get rid of this," we move toward it with curiosity.

Moving from surviving to thriving

Most people don't walk into my room saying, "I want to feel my pain." They come in saying:

• "I can't stop overeating or ruminating."

• "I can't sit still; I’m always at a frantic pace."

• "I’m having huge reactions in my relationships that I don’t want to be having."

• "I’m making myself small because I feel too anxious to thrive."

At the root of these behaviors is often a clever nervous system trying to run away from a feeling. When we process that root pain, you stop spending your life energy running. You create room in your system to actually figure out what you want and begin to truly thrive.

Tools I use to support this process: [Sensorimotor Psychotherapy] | [Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR)] | [Havening] | [Meditation]

Areas of Focus:

• Trauma Therapy

• Anxiety & Stress

• Food and Body Issues