My life’s work is to transform stories that hold us captive into stories that set us free.
My therapeutic approach
I weave together trauma-informed, relational, and animist perspectives into my healing work. This holistic view helps people to appreciate the complex internal dynamics and their relationships to the external contexts and systems of oppression in which we all exist. I seek to help my clients to feel less alone and deeply seen, and to rewrite the major narratives of their lives—shifting their perspectives from what is wrong with them to what happened to them and their people.
Through nonjudgmental curiosity, humor, insight, and emotional attunement, I create a safe space for clients to explore their psychic and social landscapes, honor their habitual forms of protection, and access more vulnerable parts of themselves. As clients unburden themselves of coping strategies that have outlived their usefulness, self-limiting beliefs, and emotional pain, they embody more ease, compassion, confidence, creativity, and vibrancy. In short, they feel expansive and alive.
My style can address a wide range of concerns, including complex PTSD, dissociation, depression, anxiety, rumination, perfectionism, people-pleasing (fawning), self-criticism, addiction, chronic shame, and strong swings of emotions. I’m particularly well-suited for people who have had previous therapies of limited usefulness and are seeking a more complete, non-pathologizing, and empowering approach.
I am licensed in Maryland and New York and practice remotely via teletherapy only.
Specialties
I particularly enjoy working with BIPOC, 1.5 and 2nd generation immigrants, people who identify as family scapegoats and/or highly sensitive, people in various stages of recovery from substance abuse, artists, writers, therapists, and trauma survivors. I am LGBTQIA+ affirming.
Special interests include (intergenerational) trauma, dissociation, Asian American racialization, shame and belonging, intersections between personal and social identities (i.e. race, gender, sexuality, class, ability status), pregnancy/early motherhood, and grief.
Training & education
Ph.D., Clinical Psychology, City University of New York
B.A. Film Studies, Yale University
Postdoctoral Fellowship: Trauma Disorders Program, Sheppard Pratt Health System
Internship: VA Connecticut Healthcare System (General Mental Health / PTSD track)
Internal Family Systems: Level 1 and 2 Training; Somatic IFS Series; Introduction to Creating Healing Circles workshop; Healing Cultural Trauma with Internal Family Systems
Additional training/experience: Johns Hopkins Counseling Center, The Addiction Institute of New York, The Psychological Center of City College of New York, New York City College of Technology