We aren't born with the skills to communicate and love well. We learn those skills from our parents, family, relationships, culture, media, and more. For better or worse, we take lessons from our individual and collective traumas, experiences of oppression or discrimination, and the rigid expectations imposed on us. I see individual and relationship therapy as a chance to sift through these pieces and build on the parts that serve you while letting go of the parts that don’t.

 

I use Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), an evidence-based approach to helping clients find safety in relationship to themselves and others so that they can learn new ways of being. EFT is based on attachment theory, which centers the role of secure connection in our well-being and explores how lack a lack thereof, especially in early childhood, affects our social, emotional, and cognitive development. By learning to tune into the deep feelings we tend to avoid, push down, or judge, we can gain a deeper understanding of the negative patterns of behavior and interaction that keep us stuck. We can then transform those patterns and rebuild secure relationships that allow for greater intimacy and vulnerability.  

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I also use Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to shift how clients relate to their difficult experiences and reconnect to the present moment through mindfulness-based practices. This approach helps clients cultivate openness to experience, deeper engagement with values, and more space to focus on what really matters to them. Paired with somatic techniques to foster greater attunement to your nervous system, I have found this approach can be especially effective in navigating neurodivergence and chronic illness. 

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