View of Counseling
I view counseling as a process in which I accompany you on a profound journey of healing and growth. As your therapist I feel honored to be a part of this journey. I offer who I am as a person to hold a space of safety and trust for you to dive into the depths of your being and catalyze the type of transformation you long for and seek.
In our sessions together I meet you wherever you are with whatever challenges you are encountering in your life that bring you into therapy at this time. In every session I focus on truly connecting with you, and being with you with what arises for you moment to moment. I use the nature of who I am—compassion, non-judgment, acceptance, openness, intuitiveness, awareness, being, and presence—so you feel seen, heard, and understood. Through giving my presence, making an attentive and heartfelt connection, and being with you in the moment I guide you in a process of exploring your struggles in order to gain insight into the causes and manifest change. As your therapist my intention during this process is to be honest with you from a neutral and outside perspective, and share the patterns I see emerging from our sessions that may be contributing to the issues you are working to overcome.
Spiritual View of Counseling
I view counseling as a spiritual practice. In essence I view it as a means of evolving consciousness individually and universally. With the intention of counseling as spiritual practice we engage in your therapy together with a focus on illuminating truth, and discerning truth from falsehood and illusion. Aligning with falsehood and illusion results in mental, emotional, and behavioral imbalance and disharmony that covers up who you are. Aligning with truth restores mental, emotional, and behavioral balance and harmony that uncovers and reveals who you really are, and brings you back to yourself.
Approach to Counseling
My approach to counseling is collaborative to best serve your unique needs and identity. We co-create your therapeutic experience together whether it is a fluid and organic process, a structured process with homework assignments between sessions, or some combination of the two. We can design your sessions to take the form of talk therapy, a different form outside the realm of traditional talk therapy, or a form that blends both of these.
My approach to counseling is mind-heart-body-spirit centered. It is holistic because I incorporate practices like meditation, mindfulness, body-awareness, movement, creativity, yogic philosophy, and take into account the human energy body and systems. I find that sometimes therapy on it’s own isn’t enough, and other western, eastern, traditional, and non-traditional healing modalities may need to be integrated.
My approach to counseling is eclectic. As an eclectic therapist I do not adhere to one specific theoretical orientation, but give myself permission to draw from them all as needed in order to guide you on your journey of healing and growth. In my opinion, every respected counseling theory offers sparks of wisdom that help to restore well-being. When applied collectively they offer an abundance of wisdom that forges a powerful potential for change. I also feel that eclecticism allows me to best respond to what’s arising for you in the present moment during sessions. My eclectic approach is heavily rooted in mindfulness, but it also emphasizes the following theories:
- Adlerian
- Analytical Psychology/Jungian
- Art Therapy
- Behavioral Therapies
- Cognitive Therapies
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Emotion Focused Therapy
- Emotional Freedom Technique
- Existential
- Family Systems
- Feminist
- Gestalt
- Movement Therapy
- Narrative Therapy
- Person-Centered/Rogerian
- Positive Psychology
- Psychodynamic
- Reality Therapy
- Solution Focused Therapy
- Somatic Psychology
- Transpersonal
- And more
Integration of Personal & Professional Life
It is very important to me that my professional and personal life are integrated. I believe that part of being a good therapist means that I know what it’s like to be in counseling, and can relate to your experience in this way. Part of my commitment to being a good therapist is being devoted to my own journey of healing, growth, and spiritual metamorphosis through meditation, yoga, and counseling so I am the best therapist I can be. I wouldn’t encourage you to do any work in counseling that I haven’t done myself, or that I wouldn’t be open and willing to encourage myself to do.
Education, Training, & Specialties
I obtained my Master of Arts degree in Counseling Psychology from Prescott College in Prescott, AZ. I am a proud member of the American Counseling Association (ACA) and the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT). In graduate school I conducted my thesis research on female sexuality and orgasm. In my thesis research I studied women’s experiences of the sexual relationship at the age of onset of female ejaculation. In graduate school I also interned at a rape crisis center counseling survivors of sexual assault and abuse. I attained post-graduate training in sex therapy by completing the Sex Therapy Program at Council for Relationships, which is ASSECT certified. My education and training lays the foundation for me specializing in the following:
- Individual, relational, and sex therapy.
- Sexual trauma and counseling survivors of sexual assault and abuse.
- Treating a variety of issues with sexual functioning such as, but not limited to, low sexual desire.
- The Emotional Freedom Technique or Tapping.
- Female ejaculation education.
- Mindfulness meditation practice and instruction.
- Spirituality within the context of transpersonal psychology. I offer counseling for people undergoing all types of spiritual awakenings, especially through Kundalini, which requires important modifications to the counseling process and unique support for this alchemical transformation.
I am also initiated as an Usui Ryoho Reiki Master & Teacher. As an energy healer I offer traditional full length Reiki Sessions, incorporate Reiki into counseling sessions for those who desire it, and teach Reiki to those who are interested and feel the calling.
View of Diagnosis & Medication
I view all mental health diagnoses as different aspects of the human condition, and simply possible phenomena that may arise for anyone in the experience of being human. To me, as much as we know about the causes and treatment of mental, emotional, and behavioral issues in the field of counseling there is far more that we do not know. I acknowledge with awe and reverence the unknown in the complexity of your problems and how you came to be who you are today. I focus on your humanity and the mystery of who you are rather than reduce your problems and their treatment through diagnosis and medication. I humbly respect the unknown of the human body and brain when it comes to consuming medication and their possible effects. I hold in the highest regard the mystery of your life and of life itself.
I also view diagnosis and medication simply as tools in my therapy toolbox that can be tried or not at your request. In my experience these can be like a double-edged sword. Diagnosis and medication can be helpful, but they can also do more harm than good. For some people diagnosis is empowering. Official diagnosis can make the intangible tangible, and therefore more understandable and remediable. For others, diagnosis is disempowering and not what they need. It may feel like judgment. It may also feel like a complete misunderstanding of who they are, and what they are experiencing and why, especially in the case of being misdiagnosed. Similarly, for some people medication is empowering. Medication can help some de-personalize their problems by showing there is actually a biological etiology when they feel better on meds and their issues start to resolve. Medication can also be empowering because it can provide extra support for a period of time while people heal and grow in therapy, and learn the skills needed to manage their problems without taking meds. For others, medication is disempowering because the side effects can create new problems that compound their original ones.
For these reasons I follow your lead on diagnosis and medication. My natural inclination is not to go the route of diagnosis or medication, but if you wish to do I will. If we go in this direction my focus would be to de-pathologize and address any stigma, judgments, side effects, or new problems that surface. I would also remind you that you are not your diagnosis, the meds you are on, or the problems you are experiencing. The truth of who you are is far more mysterious and so much more than these things!