My Approach
My education, certifications, and credentials over the past 22 years are focused on a holistic approach to healing and personal growth, encompassing psychotherapy, trauma & attachment healing, spiritual development, communication, and conflict resolution. It's been a challenge to settle on a single title for my work, as I often find myself oscillating between terms like therapist, therapeutic coach, and transformational guide or practitioner. Each title reflects different facets of my approach, but none fully encapsulates what I do. Ultimately, my focus is on fostering genuine connections and facilitating transformative conversations and experiences that empower people on their healing journeys.
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I currently hold the legal credential of unlicensed psychotherapist registered with the State of Colorado, which has allowed me to practice psychotherapy within a specific scope. Through the years, I have chosen to move away from the conventional licensing path to maintain flexibility in my approach, to better represent the larger breadth of modalities in which I am trained, and to avoid the constraints often associated with traditional mental health systems. This decision allows me to integrate a diverse range of healing practices and therapeutic techniques that extend beyond the boundaries of traditional psychotherapy.
My approach draws from evidence-based practices such as Internal Family Systems (IFS), Narrative Therapy, Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFT), Mindfulness, and Somatic Experiencing (SE), as well as holistic approaches like Polyvagal theory, Non-Violent Communication, Integral theory and Shamanic healing techniques. This eclectic background enables me to tailor our work to your unique needs, fostering a non-pathologizing environment that honors your innate capacity for healing and growth. By choosing this path, I can offer a more comprehensive and integrative approach to supporting your journey toward well-being and self-discovery.
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Modalities of focus include:
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Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a transformative, evidence-based model of psychotherapy. The IFS model believes that people are made up of many inner parts. Our inner parts contain valuable qualities and our core Self knows how to heal, allowing us to become integrated and whole. In IFS all parts are welcome. Many of our parts function in helpful, meaningful, and preferred ways and we also have wounded and protective parts that can take on extreme roles. IFS focuses on healing wounded parts and restoring balance and harmony by changing the dynamics that create discord among certain parts and the Self.
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Narrative Therapy is a non-pathologizing psychotherapy based on the notion that we make meaning of our lives through the stories we tell. These stories are constructed within the larger narratives that make up our social, political, and interpersonal contexts and they shape our reality. People often come to therapy when they experience themselves as living in stories that are dominating and restricting the possibilities in their own lives. Our work together involves co-authoring and facilitating experiences of new stories that are more empowering, aligned with your values, and create more possibilities for your relationships and life.
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Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) is based on 50 years of research into human bonding and 30 years of research into helping couples connect and thrive. EFT offers a map to the territory of love and can empower couples by showing them new systematic ways to take control of dances of disconnection and conflict and help each other move into the open close embrace that is a secure loving bond. EFT also helps families who are in distress and individuals who want to understand how they connect with others and how best to deal with their needs for support from others.​​
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Somatic Experiencing (SE) is an approach that incorporates a person’s mind, body, spirit, and emotions in the healing process. Since many of our past pains and the patterns we play out are held in our bodies, simply talking about them does not always bring about the shift and changes we desire. So in addition to talking together, we will also focus on tuning into your body awareness as a way to gather more information, deepen our work, revise old patterns, and re-wire more preferred ways of being.
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Polyvagal Theory & Emotional Trigger Work - Whether it’s about work, money, our body, or relationships, we all get triggered and are temporarily at the mercy of our flight/fight/freeze/appease survival response. Additionally, if you've experienced trauma(s) or attachment disruptions your nervous system can be primed to get dysregulated and triggered more easily. Because of this, being activated into the stress response can cause substantial interference in our lives and relationships, which has motivated me to create a Trigger Process where we journey into the depths of an emotional trigger in order to learn from it, heal what it is pointing to, diffuse its charge and realign with your ability to respond instead of react.
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Relationship Coaching is based on the synthesis of my training in conflict resolution and family mediation, Non-Violent Communication, Attachment Theory, and the Developmental Model of Couples Therapy (which emphasizes the role of normal developmental stages in relationships from Symbiosis to Synergy instead of focusing on pathology).
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Queer, Kink, and Non-Monogamy Experienced & Friendly - I know how navigating the world as a person who does not neatly fit into the more traditional ways that gender, sexuality, and relationship orientation/structure have been defined can be challenging, and because of this, finding someone who understands and welcomes the nuances of your experience is extremely important. I value working with people who identify as Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Non-Binary, Gender fluid, Trans, or anywhere on the spectrum of non-heteronormativity, BDSM, and Kink practicing, and of course, people who are exploring or are already in polyamorous or other non-monogamous multiple-partner relationships.
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Psycho-Spiritual Guidance - In the 1990s, my stepfather introduced me to the Integral Yoga Institute, where I first began my study of Yoga Philosophy. In 2001, I delved deeper into spiritual practice by studying Theravada Buddhism in Thailand and later Vipassana meditation at the Insight Meditation Society in the US. I also spent years immersed in Tibetan Buddhism and Dzogchen through the Shambhala Center and Tara Mandala in Colorado. Another key thread in my spiritual journey has been Shamanism, which I began studying in the early 2000s. My exploration included Core Shamanism, Neo Shamanism, Tibetan Shamanism, Peru's Inka/Quero practices, Celtic Shamanism, and Euro-Indigenous traditions. I’ve also been deeply influenced by non-dual teachers such as Adyashanti and Joe Dispenza.
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Please note: I do not diagnose or take insurance