I am trained in art therapy, trauma counseling and EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) and I use them in my practice with adults. While trauma involves a lack of control over a situation, my practice emphasizes clients’ power and choice as we move through therapy. I help clients process the effects of their traumatic experiences and practice tools and strategies that may alleviate their impact. Whether we touch on the specific traumatic event or not will be solely up to the client and their readiness/willingness to do so.

I work with clients who experienced acute (single incident), chronic (prolonged), and complex (multiple) trauma. These include childhood, sexual, and racial trauma, traumatic grief, trauma related to military service and war, developmental, physical, and transgenerational trauma, immigration and refuge, traumatic birth and post-partum, and more.

I utilize art therapy in my practice, when clients are willing to use it. Art therapy is the use of art and artmaking for healing. Art therapy promotes deep exploration, unraveling of non-verbal memories and messages, alternative communication, and recovery. Sometimes it can be direct, like in a prompt to draw your feelings, or it can be indirect, like in a prompt to draw whatever you want to right now. To do art therapy you don’t need to have any experience with art, any creative talents, or any need for the art to be “good.” Anyone can do art therapy as long as they are interested in it. For some it can look like simple shapes and stick figures while for others like a fully finished oil painting. Doing art therapy is about connecting to parts of yourself that aren’t accessible through words, not the finished product.