Services Provided and Therapeutic Style

I offer both individual and couples counseling to adults of all ages. I also teach mindfulness meditation in combination with traditional therapy when desired.

I assist individuals with a variety of goals, concerns, and difficulties. In addition to ameliorating symptoms, decreasing emotional pain, and helping to solve problems, I believe therapy can facilitate significant personal growth and increased wellness. Although most individuals could foreseeably benefit from the counseling process from this viewpoint, common issues with which I work include anxiety, depression, relationship and family distress, loss- and other trauma- related reactions, decision-making, general life transitions, and other stressors.

I have expertise in LGBTQ and gender concerns, attachment and couples work, and issues surrounding grief and end of life. Other areas of special interest or knowledge include aging, spirituality and existential concerns, fertility and family planning, and women’s and men’s issues.

My approach to therapy is broadly humanistic as I seek to build with my clients, in a safe and secure environment, mutual understanding of them as a whole, assisting individuals with honing their internal “voice” and tapping into their own existing strengths. This process of self-exploration often includes supported regulation of emotion and/or formulation of a coherent mind-body narrative. Clients may identify aspects of themselves and their experiences that may be previously unknown to them, but that likely provide invaluable insights into why they are facing difficulties and/or can inform positive change. Treatment often focuses on understanding their own development of patterns, identities, and values, how they continually create and cope with both individual and societal systems of meaning, and ultimately how to better connect with themselves, others, and their senses of purpose. Meditation and mindful awareness can aid in this process by allowing clients to practice “checking in” with themselves emotionally in a kind and compassionate way. They learn to identify what they are feeling, ask why, and assess for what they may need emotionally, relationally, or to live in congruence with their values. This process of emotional transformation and alignment is empirically grounded in psychotherapy outcome research on achieving deeply rooted change.

When working with couples that are seeking to heal from hurt, re-connect, or just improve the quality of their relationship, my style largely mirrors that of my approach with individual clients. I help couples to explore and identify patterns or difficulties that hinder authentic and secure relating, then increase honest communication through emotional expression and risk-taking in the context of the relationship, and ultimately create more compassionate understanding and connection.

In addition to holistic and meditative practices and the use of body in therapy, I’ve incorporated other creative tools into my work with clients, such as metaphor, poetry, art, and music. My work is client-focused and informed by feminism, multiculturalism, and social justice and systems perspectives.

Bio and Credentials

I received a BA in Psychology, with a minor in Studio Art, from Transylvania University located in Lexington, KY, and a MS in Community Counseling from Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN. I then went on to earn a PhD in Counseling Psychology from The University of Memphis, where I acquired additional clinical training in process-experiential methods, and concentrations in qualitative inquiry and social justice. I interned at the University of Florida Counseling and Wellness Center and have since been working in private practice in Richmond, VA. My PhD and internship programs are accredited by the American Psychological Association. I have been licensed in Virginia as a Clinical Psychologist since 2013.