Anxiety can debilitating! I work with anxiety using a mix of cognitive-behavioral tools, mindfulness practices, parts work, and empathetic listening to help you understand the roots of your anxiety better. Exposure and facing your fears is an important component of working with anxiety, but you don’t have to do it alone! Anxiety work consists of both learning tools to better work with anxiety, and depth work to get at the roots of specific anxiety triggers.

Depression is sometimes referred to as the “fever” of mental illness as it can have many different causes. How I work with depression depends on the underlying causes. In some cases, reconnection to valued activities and joy is the active ingredient of treatment. In other cases, depression relates to living out of alignment with values, difficulties with meaning-making, negative thinking patterns, or difficulty coping with life circumstances. In some cases medication can be indicated, in which case I might coordinate with a medical provider. As depression is multi-causal each treatment will be tailored to your particular circumstances.

Insomnia and chronic sleep deprivation can be very challenging. As someone who struggled with sleep throughout my life, sleep has become a strong area of clinical focus for me. Sleep is a purely unconscious process, therefore we can not make ourselves go to sleep, we can only create conditions favorable for sleep, and get out of our own way. Fortunately, sleep problems are often amenable to short-term treatment. My work with sleep is centered around cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) and working to understand your particular emotional and practical barriers to sleep.

Trauma is an emotional reaction to a distressing event that overwhelms coping. Symptoms include flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety, avoidance, and intrusive thoughts. When we cope successfully, our brain integrates distressing events into our story, they are “digested”. When events exceed our coping mechanisms, they can remain undigested. Anything that reminds us of the experience can “retrigger” the original event. I use a combination of “top-down approaches” (therapies such as cognitive processing therapy which work with your narrative of the events) and “bottom-up approaches” (experiential therapies such as EMDR) approaches to help you digest these experiences.

Individuals with ADHD may experience difficulties in sustaining attention, organizing tasks, following instructions, and controlling impulses. In my view, ADHD can be just a different way that your brain works. In some circumstances that can actually be a strength. People with ADHD often have the ability to hyperfocus which can be a strength in some circumstances, they also often excel in a crisis. One theory states that people with ADHD have “hunter-gatherer” brains in a “farmer” world. This can cause struggle in a world so filled with distraction that it even creates difficulties for those with neurotypical brains. My work with people with ADHD involves a mix of practical tools and tips to help navigate a world that is sometimes not built for your strengths as well as work on self-acceptance and helping you to live aligned with your particular values and goals.

Sometimes mental health symptoms are related to being disconnected from your values, engaging in work that is not in alignment with your values, or relationships that do not serve you. This can sometimes lead to feelings of depression, burnout, low motivation or confusion. I work with these issues with a combination of ACT values work, and depth work to help you to connect to your deeper motivations.

Grief and loss is something we all experience in our time as human beings on this planet. It is the one thing that unites us all. Grief can be painful, and sometimes can become stuck, especially if there is no one there to witness it, we are denied its expression, or it is avoided. The four tasks of mourning according to J. William Worden are to accept the reality of the loss, process the pain of the loss, to adjust to the world without the deceased, and to find a way to remember the deceased while engaging in life. Sometimes we just need to be witnessed and to feel less alone, other times we might need help in letting go or creating rituals to honor the deceased. Grief can also occur in response to other losses such as relationships, or career setbacks, or the loss of possibilities. I work with grief through a mix of deep listening and experiential exercises.