Are you married? Do you have kids?
Yes. I have been married for over 25 years and have 3 grown children. I often say I know the textbook stuff about parenting and relationships but I also speak from the heart.
Have you ever gone to therapy?
Yes! I love this question. I first went to therapy when I was a teenager and I’ve gone off and on as an adult. I ended up being colleagues with my first therapist for a brief period of time before she retired. I thought that was pretty cool.
Do you ever get frustrated with clients for not making progress?
No. Never ever and I mean that. Everyone is on their own journey and healing doesn’t happen in a neat straight line. I encourage clients to let me know if they are rustrated with a lack of progress so that we can explore why. It’s often from wanting to feel better and being frustrated they don’t or feeling like they might be disappointing me or failing at therapy. It’s good to explore those feelings and to explore possible obstacles and ways we might need to approach therapy differently. I can also help with the referral process if our therapeutic relationship has run its course.
What therapeutic approaches do you use?
I always operate from a trauma informed approach. To me that means awareness of what experiences have been impactful, how you make meaning of things, what might be uniquely challenging for you, what coping skills helped you survive that might benefit from a new approach. Trauma informed includes many other approaches such as cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, systemic, relational, and a lot of psychoeducation.
