Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

ACT focuses on helping you explore values, action-orientation, mindfulness, salient identities, degree of acceptance, and thought patterns to develop psychological flexibility. This is the ability to experience difficult thoughts and emotions without allowing them to completely control your behavior.

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Rather than trying to eliminate every uncomfortable feeling, ACT focuses on helping you understand what matters to you and learn how to move toward those values even when anxiety, sadness, fear, or self-doubt are present.

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ACT can be particularly helpful for people who feel stuck in overthinking, avoidance, perfectionism, anxiety, or difficult emotional patterns.

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Together, we may explore:

• Personal values and what matters most to you

• The difference between thoughts and facts

• Emotional avoidance and how it may be keeping you stuck

• How to make meaningful choices even when emotions are difficult

• Self-compassion and acceptance

• Building a life that feels aligned with who you want to be

Internal Family Systems (IFS)

IFS is a parts-based approach that recognizes that people can experience different internal "parts" of themselves, each with its own emotions, beliefs, fears, and protective roles.

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An IFS-informed approach can be particularly useful for understanding internal conflict. For example, when one part of you wants to move forward while another part feels afraid, overwhelmed, angry, or protective. Rather than viewing these parts as problems that need to be eliminated, we can become curious about what they are trying to communicate and protect.

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IFS-informed interventions may help people:

• Develop greater self-understanding

• Recognize patterns of internal conflict

• Approach difficult emotions with curiosity rather than judgment

• Understand protective behaviors

• Develop greater self-compassion

• Explore how past experiences may influence present-day reactions

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I am not formally trained in IFS but have taken several continuing education courses and use IFS-informed concepts as one part of a broader integrative approach to therapy.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

CBT was the primary therapeutic framework in my graduate training and remains an important foundation of my clinical approach.

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CBT focuses on the relationship between our thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and experiences. When we become aware of patterns that are no longer serving us, we can begin developing more effective ways of responding.

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CBT can help clients:

• Identify unhelpful thought patterns

• Understand the connection between thoughts and emotions

• Develop healthier coping strategies

• Change behaviors that contribute to distress

• Improve emotional regulation

• Build practical skills for managing anxiety, depression, and life stressors

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I often integrate CBT strategies with other approaches rather than relying on CBT alone.

Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT)

TF-CBT is an evidence-based approach designed to help children and adolescents process traumatic experiences and develop healthier ways of coping with trauma-related thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

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TF-CBT can be particularly helpful for teens who have experienced trauma, significant stress, difficult family experiences, loss, abuse, or other overwhelming events.

In therapy, TF-CBT may help adolescents:

• Understand how trauma can affect thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and relationships

• Develop healthy coping and emotional regulation skills

• Identify and challenge unhelpful thoughts and beliefs

• Build a greater sense of safety and control

• Process traumatic experiences at an appropriate pace

• Develop healthier ways to respond to reminders or triggers

Because trauma affects everyone differently, TF-CBT is integrated into treatment based on the individual client's needs rather than used as a rigid formula.

Family Systems

Family Systems Therapy looks at the individual within the context of their relationships and family system. Rather than viewing emotional or behavioral concerns as existing solely within one person, this approach considers how family dynamics, communication patterns, roles, boundaries, and past experiences can influence the way people relate to one another.

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Family systems work can be particularly helpful for clients navigating difficult family relationships, parent-child conflict, mother-daughter relationships, boundary-setting, and patterns that seem to repeat across generations.

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In therapy, we may explore:

• How family roles and expectations have shaped your relationships

• Patterns of communication and conflict

• Boundaries, closeness, and emotional distance

• How family members respond to one another's emotions

• Generational patterns and beliefs that may have been passed down

• The difference between healthy connection and enmeshment

• How to communicate needs while maintaining important relationships

• How to create healthier relationship patterns without taking responsibility for everyone else's emotions

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Family Systems Therapy can also be incorporated into individual therapy. You do not need to attend therapy with your family for family systems work to be helpful. We can explore your relationships and the patterns within them while focusing on what is within your control and how you want to show up in those relationships.

Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR)

EMDR is a trauma therapy that can help people process distressing experiences that continue to affect them in the present.

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Sometimes we understand intellectually that something happened in the past, but our nervous system continues to respond as though the experience is happening now. EMDR can help clients work through distressing memories and the thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, and beliefs connected to them.

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EMDR may be helpful for individuals experiencing:

• Trauma and difficult past experiences

• Anxiety related to past events

• Distressing memories

• Emotional triggers

• Negative beliefs about themselves

• Relationship patterns connected to past experiences

• Overwhelming emotional or physiological responses

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EMDR is not about forcing yourself to repeatedly talk through every detail of a traumatic experience. Treatment is paced carefully and adapted to your readiness and needs.