Who I Help
I work with individuals, couples, and families who feel stuck in patterns they can often see, but cannot always seem to change.
You may find yourself becoming anxious, defensive, resentful, shut down, overly responsible, self-critical, or unsure how to stay connected to yourself while staying connected to others. You may know something feels off in your relationships, but have a hard time naming exactly what is happening or how to make it different.
Therapy offers a place to slow those patterns down and begin to understand them with more care and clarity.
My work is rooted in the belief that people make sense. The ways we protect ourselves, pursue connection, avoid conflict, please others, withdraw, overfunction, or shut down usually developed for a reason. These patterns may have helped you get through earlier relationships or difficult seasons of life. Over time, though, what once protected you can begin to create distance, anxiety, resentment, loneliness, or disconnection.
Together, we can begin to understand what is happening beneath the surface and what may become possible as you relate to yourself and others in new ways.
Individuals
Individual therapy may be helpful if you are feeling anxious, overwhelmed, self-critical, disconnected from yourself, or caught in relational patterns that leave you feeling exhausted.
You may find yourself taking responsibility for other people’s emotions, struggling to set boundaries, replaying conversations, avoiding conflict, or feeling unsure of what you need until you are already resentful or depleted. You may also notice that even when you understand something intellectually, it is hard to respond differently in the moment.
In individual therapy, we can explore the deeper patterns underneath what you are experiencing. This may include anxiety, people-pleasing, codependency, self-criticism, grief, family dynamics, life transitions, attachment patterns, or difficulty trusting yourself and your needs.
The goal is not to become someone else. The goal is to become more connected to yourself — more able to understand what you feel, name what you need, and respond with more steadiness and self-trust.
Couples
Couples often come to therapy when they feel caught in the same painful cycle over and over again.
One partner may push for connection, protest, criticize, or try harder to be understood, while the other may withdraw, defend, shut down, or feel like nothing they do is enough. Over time, both partners can feel unseen, hurt, and alone — even when both are trying, in their own way, to protect the relationship.
In couples therapy, I help partners slow down the pattern between them so they can better understand what is happening underneath the conflict. Often, the argument itself is not the deepest issue. Beneath defensiveness, anger, withdrawal, or criticism, there are usually more vulnerable emotions and needs: to feel safe, valued, chosen, respected, understood, or emotionally met.
My work with couples is not about deciding who is the problem. It is about understanding the cycle that has taken over the relationship and helping each partner begin to reach for one another in more honest, clear, and connected ways.
Couples therapy may be helpful if you are navigating frequent conflict, emotional distance, communication breakdowns, resentment, trust injuries, parenting stress, or a sense that you keep missing each other despite wanting things to feel better.
Families and Growing Families
Family relationships can hold deep love, loyalty, pain, responsibility, grief, and complexity.
I work with families and clients navigating the emotional impact of family transitions, parenting, role changes, grief, infertility, pregnancy loss, postpartum adjustment, and the many shifts that can come with growing or changing a family.
These seasons can bring up old patterns in powerful ways. You may notice increased anxiety, conflict, disconnection, resentment, grief, or pressure to hold everything together. You may also find yourself reflecting on the family you came from, the family you are building, and the kind of relationships you want to create moving forward.
Therapy can offer a place to understand these layers with compassion, honesty, and support.
Common Reasons People Reach Out
People often reach out when they are navigating:
Anxiety or feeling emotionally overwhelmed
Relationship conflict or disconnection
Codependency and people-pleasing
Difficulty setting boundaries
Self-criticism or shame
Resentment or emotional exhaustion
Grief, loss, or life transitions
Family conflict or changing family roles
Infertility, pregnancy loss, postpartum transitions, or growing families
Betrayal, broken trust, or difficulty repairing after hurt
Anxious, avoidant, or fearful attachment patterns
Feeling stuck in the same emotional or relational patterns
You do not need to have the right words for what is happening before beginning therapy. Part of our work can be making sense of the things that have felt confusing, painful, or difficult to name.
How I Work
My approach to therapy is attachment-based, relational, emotionally focused, and psychoanalytic-informed.
This means I pay attention not only to what is happening on the surface, but also to the deeper emotional patterns, protective strategies, and relational experiences that shape how you experience yourself and others.
An attachment-based approach helps us understand how your relationships have shaped the way you experience closeness, conflict, safety, vulnerability, and emotional needs.
A relational approach means therapy itself is collaborative. We pay attention to what happens in relationships, including the relationship you have with yourself and the patterns that show up with others.
An emotionally focused approach helps us slow down and understand the emotions underneath your reactions, rather than only focusing on behavior or communication strategies.
A psychoanalytic-informed approach allows us to be curious about what may be happening beneath your immediate awareness — the older patterns, fears, longings, defenses, and meanings that may still be shaping your present-day life.
In therapy, we may explore questions like:
Why does this reaction feel so familiar?
What am I protecting myself from in this moment?
Where did I learn to handle conflict, closeness, or vulnerability this way?
What feels risky about having needs, setting limits, trusting, or being known?
What would it look like to respond from more steadiness instead of self-protection?
I do not believe meaningful change comes from shame or pressure. I believe change becomes more possible when we can understand the patterns that have been trying to protect you and begin creating something safer, more honest, and more connected in their place.
Finding a Way Through
Therapy is not about forcing yourself to be unaffected by what has happened or rushing yourself toward quick change.
Often, healing means finding a way through: through grief, through old protective patterns, through difficult conversations, through fear, through disconnection, and through the parts of yourself you may have had to ignore, criticize, or carry alone.
My hope is that therapy offers a place where you can feel understood, gently challenged, and supported as you begin to move through what has felt stuck.
If something here resonates with you, I welcome you to reach out. We can begin with a consultation and talk together about whether therapy feels like the right next step.