Child and Family Therapy
My work is trauma-responsive, child-centered, and LGBTQIA+ and People of Color affirming. I believe each child and family who comes to see me brings experience and knowledge that are strengths. Using these strengths as starting points, we do the work together to move towards healing and improved functioning.
It is a privilege to get to know your child and family. I’ve been working with kids since high school and spent a good deal of my time as a therapist thus far practicing with kids and teens. Most recently, I completed a year-long training fellowship in child and adolescent mental health at Kaiser Permanente Northern California.
My orientation to therapeutic work is varied and draws from narrative therapy, EMDR, mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy as appropriate. Depending on age, I may utilize play therapy to help clients tell their stories through art, games and play with figures and other toys.
In my therapy room:
We understand the child is the expert of their own experience.
We learn that all feelings are valid and open to be explored.
We know that child work is often family work and the importance of family, whatever that looks like, is incorporated.
We acknowledge that broader societal context and issues of race, class, sexuality, gender, ability and other identifiers inform everyone’s experience.
Services
Children and Adolescents
I help children and families prepare for and deal with the aftermath of transitions of all kinds, whether that be the arrival of a new baby, changing schools, parental separation or divorce, a move, or peer bullying.
Change can be hard for anyone, but when you’re a child with little control of your surroundings, it can be especially difficult to navigate. This sometimes leads to negative feelings and behaviors that are new to a child and family system. Using a combination of therapy techniques I help children and families conquer negative thinking, learn to better regulate their emotional responses, and tell a new story about who they are and what is happening or has happened. Change is hard, but you don’t have to face it alone.
Family Counseling
I help parents and guardians of preschool+ build better relationships with their children and navigate challenging behavior. Together we can put into place systems and routines to support success through a combination of family therapy and adult coaching.
Parent and Guardian Coaching
Parent and guardian coaching typically focuses on one specific issue happening in a family. You might be struggling with tantruming in little ones, trouble with school work in school-aged kids, or consistent tension related to problem behavior in teens. We meet a few times to discuss the issue and develop a game plan which might include changing discipline strategies, working with children and teens as co-collaborators to develop a better system, or helping parents and guardians change the way they communicate and react to their kids.