The first thing you need to know about me is that I am not your Traditional Therapist (I’m an EMDR and DBT nerd and super passionate about what I do!) and everyone that works for me is an extension of me and my values.  I value both the science and the art, creative, and personalized experience of therapy.  I value both ethical practice and the need to adapt the science that I have to fit the needs of the human being sitting in front of me.  

My values regarding client care:

Trauma is something that happens to you, it’s not part of your identity.  I work with trauma because I believe people can change and heal from their experiences.  I seek to empower people to heal and grow and I truly believe you can.  I have lived experience in most of the conditions that I treat or I have worked with them for a long time and have extensive training.  You will not intimate me with your experience.  I often tell my clients, “If I don’t know something, I will find out”.  Many of the clients that come see me have had a prior therapy experience that did not go well.  While I always remain humble in what I do and let folks know “You are in the driver’s seat”, I want to make it clear that I have 18 years of experience in what I do and I’m always learning and consulting with experts to be the best version of myself for my clients and my staff.  I go to my own therapy and work on my own stuff.  Lastly, it is part of my professional and personal ethics to respond to all client referrals within 24 hours.  I feel strongly that if you reach out, I will respond.  I keep our wait list intentionally low because I do not feel it’s ethical for folks to wait a long time to get help. 

My values regarding my group practice: 

I worked in community mental health and government for 17 years.  Many times, I was working in a toxic, oppressive workplace and was extremely burned out.  It is highly important to me to provide a healing and safe environment for my staff.  I pride myself on hiring folks that are deeply aligned with my values, highly skilled and trained (it’s not always about years of experience!), and have the self respect to expect to be taken care of by their boss.  I believe it’s important to always be learning.  I teach my staff everything I know and provide them with free consultation and training.  It is the privilege and a responsibility of a boss to take care of their people.  If you work with my therapists, please know that I am taking care of them so they can skillfully take care of you!  A lot of folks that come to work with me have been burned out by their previous employer and want something more.  I value providing a safe, comfortable, trauma sensitive, diversity/inclusive, employee centered working environment.  Burnout will be assessed and taken seriously and consultation support is provided.  It’s so important to me, I write this language into my contracts.