My approach
I’m a humanistic psychotherapist. I see people as inherently healthy and aspiring to learn, grow, and better themselves.
We all have our struggles and difficulties, but they don’t define us. Our struggles don’t mean that we’re somehow inadequate or flawed. They just mean that we might need a bit of help sometimes.
I recognize we don’t all have the same level of influence and access to power in our society. I work from a feminist perspective meaning that I see each individual in a particular context, affected by different systems of oppressions that interact with the multiple identities that an individual holds and thus shapes their experiences in the world.
My approach to psychotherapy is to help people access their inner resources. I’m here to help you understand and make sense of your struggles using an embodied and experiential approach to psychotherapy.
We’ve been socialized to prioritize the brain above all, and my work centers the body as an extremely intelligent and insightful tool. Traditional psychotherapy has divided body and mind for too long, but the two are inextricably linked. I believe in holistic healing and I work as the bridge between these two schools of thought, taking a person-centered, experiential approach with Emotional Focused Therapy and Yoga Therapy as the primary pillars of this work.
“Emotion is the chief source of all becoming conscious. There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion.”
- C. G. Jung
Why focus on emotion in psychotherapy?
Why focus on emotion in psychotherapy?
Emotions are a key part of our experience and identity. It’s through our emotions that we interact with the world. They’re at the heart of our relationships, preferences, decision-making, personal power, and free will.
Yet, so many of us remain closed off from the things we feel and sense all day, every day, because somewhere along the line, we learned to suppress our emotions or avoid them, thinking that will keep us safe. But a lack of emotional awareness often has the opposite effect. If we never allow ourselves to feel what we feel, we either live in fear of being overwhelmed by our emotions or we walk through life feeling empty and disconnected, from ourselves, and from others. Sometimes this may manifest as anxiety, depression, and other mental health struggles.
Our emotional system is very valuable in that it informs us of our needs, organizes us for action, and functions as a communication system with the outside world. When we tap into the wisdom of our adaptive emotions, we can use them to uncover important information and insight. That’s why emotion-focused therapy can be so powerful.
Emotions are a key part of our experience and identity. It’s through our emotions that we interact with the world. They’re at the heart of our relationships, preferences, decision-making, personal power, and free will.
Yet, so many of us remain closed off from the things we feel and sense all day, every day, because somewhere along the line, we learned to suppress our emotions or avoid them, thinking that will keep us safe. But a lack of emotional awareness often has the opposite effect. If we never allow ourselves to feel what we feel, we either live in fear of being overwhelmed by our emotions or we walk through life feeling empty and disconnected, from ourselves, and from others. Sometimes this may manifest as anxiety, depression, and other mental health struggles.
Our emotional system is very valuable in that it informs us of our needs, organizes us for action, and functions as a communication system with the outside world. When we tap into the wisdom of our adaptive emotions, we can use them to uncover important information and insight. That’s why emotion-focused therapy can be so powerful.
What is emotion-focused therapy
What is emotion-focused therapy?
Emotion-focused therapy (EFT) is a humanistic-experiential approach. This means we work with what is happening inside of you in the here and now. It’s a relearning process that begins by bringing your attention to your experience and learning to tune into what your emotions are signaling to you, and whether or not this information should be trusted.
EFT is an evidence-based approach recognized by the American Psychological Association. Since its inception in the late 1980’s researchers have been studying its efficacy and have proven that it is a useful way of working with different types of emotional and mental health issues, and that it leads to long-term change. The research shows that helping people connect with their feelings and their bodies, in the context of a safe and supportive therapeutic relationship is extremely beneficial.
Historically, psychotherapeutic approaches have favored the intellectual aspect of human functioning and promoted gaining awareness of problematic relational patterns, or thinking patterns. This can be helpful, but not without taking into account a crucial element of the human experience: your feelings. In EFT, it’s less about what you think and more about how you feel. So we move away from the brain and down into the body to help work through different blockages that underlie all sorts of emotional and psychological problems.
EFT can help you gain awareness of your emotions and learn how to regulate them so they don’t overwhelm you. Each person moves at their own pace through this process, but with time, you’ll be able to tap into the insight and wisdom of your emotions and use them to guide you.
“Disconnection from the body is a cultural epidemic..without the body as a unifying figure of existence we become fragmented. We repress our aliveness and become machine-like. Mind severed from body, culture from planet, to lose our ground is to lose our home.”
- Anodea Judith, Eastern Body, Western Mind.
Want to know how psychotherapy works and what to expect of this process?
YOGA THERAPY
YOGA THERAPY
We live in a world that favors the brain and our intellect over the wisdom of the body. A world that favors empiricism and proof and facts, instead of feelings, self-awareness, and inner knowing that comes from tuning into the body. We’re being driven to distraction and endless consumption, that give rise to empty, disembodied experiences. It’s time to reclaim our vitality, by learning to attend to and connect to our bodies and our breath.