ABOUT ME
I became a therapist because therapy changed my life.
I struggled with my mental health growing up. What got me through wasn’t just time or willpower — it was an incredible individual therapist and a family therapist who helped me understand myself, and my family, in a whole new way. I wanted to do that for other people.
I joined a private therapy practice in St. Paul, Minnesota in 2013. Since then, I have worked extensively with adolescents as well as adults. I have experience treating a variety of issues including depression, anxiety, OCD, academic motivation and performance, ADHD, phase of life transitions, grief/loss, chronic illness management, relationships, and parenting. I also have experience in expatriate mental health.
I take a collaborative approach to clinical work and I incorporate a variety of evidenced-based treatment modalities into my work with clients. These include mindfulness-based practices, cognitive-behavioral therapy, dialectical-behavioral therapy, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), Exposure and Response Prevention (EXRP), and insight-oriented therapy.
How I Work
I think therapy works best when two things are true: you’re open and curious about yourself and the world around you, and there’s a warm, trusting relationship between you and your therapist. I’m fully committed to bringing the second, and I’ll meet you where you are on the first.
I’m invested in providing therapy that actually moves the needle. That means being honest with you, gently — asking questions that help you see things differently and bringing whatever is genuinely going to be useful, whether that’s a specific technique or just being a real person in the room (or, you know, on Zoom).
You might wonder why someone would see a marriage and family therapist for individual work. MFTs are trained to see people as part of systems — families, relationships, workplaces, cultures. That lens doesn’t go away in individual work. If anything it’s why many clients find it surprisingly helpful for things that feel relational — old family patterns, tough dynamics with a partner or parent, conflict that keeps reappearing in different relationships. Most of us aren’t struggling in a vacuum, and that wider lens tends to help the work go deeper, faster.
Background and Training
I have a master’s degree in Counseling Psychology with a concentration in Family Psychology from the University of St. Thomas, and I’m a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Iowa, Minnesota, Massachusetts, New York, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. I’ve been in the helping professions for more than twenty years — starting as a hospice social worker in Duluth, then working in ICU and palliative care in Minneapolis, before moving into therapy in 2013.