Welcome! I am so happy that you are taking this step towards healing and growth! I want to offer immense encouragement as you begin your journey of self-understanding. It’s my personal belief that all humans have the power to grow and heal, but sometimes we get lost or stuck on this journey. It can feel overwhelming and disheartening when we find ourselves stuck back in familiar (perhaps uncomfortable) places we’ve already been. That’s okay! It’s a part of healing. Therapy is a powerful place where we can meet these all parts of us with compassion to find healing & wholeness.

As a therapist, I believe an important factor to establishing trust is authenticity and transparency. I also value safety and collaboration within therapy, and empower clients to always prioritize their safety. My clinical approach focuses on exploring early, often relational, experiences to create an understanding of current struggles and foster healing. My approach also includes the recognition of clients’ unique identity and cultural experiences and naming societal/systemic impact to clients’ health.   

Pregnancy, postpartum, and parenthood

I have a deep passion for supporting individuals throughout their journey with pregnancy, postpartum, and parenthood. As a parent myself, I am aware of the magic that lies within parenthood, and also the struggles one can face with finding a sense of identity, managing shame or guilt, or experiencing the re-emergence of wounds that so often occurs throughout parenthood. Additionally, as a relational and trauma-informed practitioner, I am especially passionate about supporting parents who wish to work towards implementing a respect-based and conscious parenting approach.

A specific area of passion and expertise I hold is working with parents who have experienced complex or complicated relationships with their own caregivers. I value working with individuals in their own journey of re-parenting and healing, especially as they are parenting their own children.

Somatic therapy

It’s a core belief of mine that true health and healing must include attention to one’s body. By learning to listen to our bodies, we have the capacity to better align with ourselves and our needs. One primary way I support clients with “listening better” to their bodies is through nervous system education and regulation. Because of this, my clinical work typically incorporates nervous system tracking, embodied processing, body movement, somatic processing, breath work, vagus nerve stimulation strategies, and other nervous system regulating strategies.

Experience

I earned my doctorate in clinical psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Before coming to Balanced Awakening, I worked as a staff psychologist at University of Iowa. During my time at University of Iowa, I was entrusted with providing campus-wide therapeutic support and supervising/training doctoral-candidate graduate students. 

I have extensive experience offering both brief and long-term therapy to individuals with a wide variety of ages, identities/intersecting identities, and presenting concerns. I practice from an integrative approach, meaning I utilize an array of therapeutic approaches. Some therapies I have expertise in include: Justice-oriented mental health treatment, Somatic/Bodily Healing, Self-Compassion, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Interpersonal/Psychodynamic Therapies (Interpersonal Process Therapy, Relational Cultural Theory), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Mindfulness, Trauma-Informed.