On my first day of graduate school, we were given an art therapy directive: draw what you're feeling. I drew a map. A map was what I thought I needed; a set of rules I could learn, implement, and use to heal people.

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It took me a while to understand what a map could and couldn't give me. I needed the training, and I needed to know the theory. But this work was far more complex than I could have imagined and I needed much more than a map. I needed to learn how to be more fully myself, human and alive, so that I could help other people do the same.

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Most people come to therapy wanting to change something, to feel more, or less, or differently. But change is hard, because every strategy and pattern you've built was perfectly designed, at some point, to keep you safe. The problem isn't that you made them. The problem is that they're outdated.

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I've spent more than two decades in this work — across hospitals, community mental health, schools, and private practice, with different populations, all carrying different weight. I've seen what helps people change, and what keeps them the same.

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Most of the people I work with have done therapy before. They can explain their patterns clearly and still find themselves inside them. We certainly talk; but the thing that's different about therapy with me, and with anyone on my team, is that we don't just stay with intellectualizing. Yes, we could analyze your situation together, and that might be interesting to do, but will it help you have the life you want? Will it help you feel more satisfied, or less alone?

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I work experientially because that's what the brain needs to feel a shift. There's a difference between saying "I'm so angry with my father" and imagining your father in the room and telling him you're angry. Or noticing that when you're sharing your anger you're smiling, and my inviting you to say it without the smile. Or noticing what happens in your body when you try to slow down. Is your chest tightening? Are your eyes darting around the room? Do you suddenly want to run? All of that is important information — it tells us what's actually happening in your nervous system, and what you might need in order to feel safe enough to make a change.

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We talk, and we also work with what's happening while we talk — where something lands in your body, what image shows up when words run out, what happens between the two of us in the room. It isn't mystical and it isn't a shortcut. It's a way of reaching material that talking about it hasn't touched.

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I've historically worked with cPTSD and attachment trauma, which at its core is deeply relational. As I've moved more into this founder role, my practice has shifted to short-term containers to work through specific traumas, such as my Somatic Trauma Intensive. I still approach the work through a relational lens, but the goal of this program is to move through a past experience or block, rather than provide long-term support.

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Therapy is a unique process that I take very seriously, but that doesn't mean I don't have a sense of humor. I do my best to translate psychoeducation into frames you can actually use in everyday life. I believe everyone is moving toward health, and that through insight, compassion, acceptance, and accountability, we can open up greater possibilities for ourselves. I like to work alongside people, supporting them to create and live inside the life they want for themselves rather than showing up with all the answers.

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Alongside my clinical work, I continue to learn and to teach. I founded The Wellness Collective NYC, where I teach continuing education courses for clinicians across the field, and I'm adjunct faculty at Gestalt Associates for Psychotherapy. I've published on expressive arts approaches to trauma, and you can find my more personal writing in my monthly newsletter. Teaching asks me to be precise about what I do and why I do it. I'm also a student: I completed a three-year training program to become a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP), and I'm currently training in interpersonal psychoanalysis at the William Alanson White Institute, with a focus on eating disorders, addictions, and compulsions.

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More than twenty years in, I'm still astonished at what this process can do. It has transformed my life, and my hope is to set up the conditions for it to change yours.