A Personalized Approach to Transformative Therapy

I was trained in psychodynamic therapy, which focuses on how unconscious processes influence feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. While I still like those ideas, they felt less practical to me.

Now, I use Mentalization-Based Therapy (MBT) as my main approach. MBT builds on attachment theory, which says early relationships shape how we connect with ourselves and others. It focuses on understanding our own and others’ thoughts and feelings to improve mental health and relationships.

The big idea is that healing happens in relationships—not just in therapy but in everyday life too.

I’m passionate about helping individuals struggling with addiction, mood disorders, and personality disorders. Addiction is often misunderstood, and stigma can create confusion about the best ways to support those affected. I use research-based treatments and a compassionate, understanding approach to help clients make meaningful progress.

Whether you're working toward abstinence or simply exploring how alcohol, drugs, or other addictive behaviors affect your life, I’m here to support you in that journey. My main focus is helping you understand whether these behaviors are helping or hindering your personal growth and goals. Together, we’ll set clear steps for progress, with honest feedback and a collaborative plan to move forward.

Healing happens in relationships, and true growth requires understanding our connections with others. Humans are wired for connection, but due to life experiences, some may struggle to trust relationships or navigate conflict constructively. In my work with families and couples, I draw from three key approaches:

1. Mentalization-Based Therapy for Families: Helps slow reactive patterns (like fight, flight, or freeze) to foster curiosity and reduce judgment in relationships.

2. Gottman Method: Provides tools to build closeness, create shared meaning, and handle conflict effectively.

3. Relational Life Therapy (RLT): Focuses on breaking harmful patterns, encouraging accountability, and deepening intimacy.

These approaches empower individuals and families to strengthen bonds, improve communication, and build healthier, more fulfilling relationships.

With extensive experience across all levels of care— including inpatient, residential, day treatment, half-day treatment, outpatient, and community integration—I have the knowledge to support healing at any intensity level.

I offer intensive therapy for individuals, families, and couples because traditional weekly therapy or intensive outpatient programs (IOP) often lack the responsiveness and tailored support needed for meaningful progress. Intensive therapy provides several benefits:

1. Faster Results: Clients can experience and see tangible changes earlier in the process, keeping them motivated to continue making progress.

2. Tailored Support: The focused, in-depth nature of intensive therapy allows for more personalized care and faster breakthroughs than weekly sessions.

3. Time-Efficient: By providing tools upfront in a condensed format, intensive therapy can shorten the overall duration of treatment, helping clients get back on track more quickly.

For those seeking faster, more impactful change, intensive therapy can be the key to moving through challenges more effectively than traditional weekly sessions.

I’ve added movement-based therapies to my practice to better support clients healing from trauma. Since trauma is stored in the body, talk therapy alone is often not enough. I use two effective movement-based approaches:

1. Experiential and Psychodrama Techniques: Activities like art and role-playing help clients explore emotions, gain insight, and discover solutions in a supportive, interactive way.

2. Chi for Two®: A gentle, mindful movement practice that helps regulate the nervous system by fostering connection and calm through partnered movement.

These methods help clients heal more fully by addressing trauma both emotionally and physically.

Psychodynamic training is like learning to be a detective for the mind and emotions. Therapists trained in this way focus on understanding how people’s past experiences—especially in their early relationships—affect how they feel, think, and act today. It’s about looking under the surface to figure out patterns that might not be obvious, like why someone gets stuck in the same kinds of problems or feels certain emotions without knowing why.

When therapists learn this approach early in their careers, it becomes part of how they think about people. Even if they add other modern, science-backed methods to their toolbox later, the psychodynamic foundation helps them see the deeper layers of what someone is struggling with—whether it’s in their relationships, how they see themselves, or how they handle tough feelings. It’s like combining classic detective skills with high-tech tools to help people understand themselves and make meaningful changes in their lives.