FAQ

Trauma fundamentally changes how we experience ourselves and navigate the world. It's not just what happened to us—it's how our entire system reorganized to survive. When we experience overwhelming events, our bodies and minds develop protective patterns that, while brilliant at keeping us safe in the moment, can become constraining long after the danger has passed.

In our work together, we don't just talk about trauma—we explore how it lives in your body. You might notice how your shoulders chronically brace for impact, how your breathing becomes shallow when stressed, or how certain sensations trigger overwhelming responses. This isn't weakness or dysfunction; it's your system's attempt to protect you based on what it learned.

Through Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, we gently engage with these body-based patterns. We might explore what happens when you slowly release those braced shoulders, or experiment with extending your exhale to signal safety to your nervous system. This embodied exploration, combined with understanding your story, creates new neural pathways—literally rewiring your response to the world.

What makes this approach unique is that we're not trying to override your protective responses or push through them. Instead, we're developing a collaborative relationship with your body's wisdom, honoring what it's been holding while creating space for new possibilities. Your body remembers the trauma, yes, but it also holds an innate capacity for healing that often surprises us with its intelligence and resilience.

The process isn't always linear. Some days we might focus on building resources—finding what helps you feel grounded, connected, and present. Other times, we'll carefully approach the edges of difficult experiences, always at a pace that respects your system's capacity. This isn't about re-traumatizing; it's about gently expanding your window of tolerance so you can be present with your full experience without being overwhelmed by it.

We are wired for connection, yet often without realizing it, we continue to operate from old relational patterns long after they've stopped serving us. These patterns—how we attach, defend, reach out, or withdraw—were usually brilliant adaptations to our early environments. The child who learned to be invisible to avoid conflict, the one who became hypervigilant to others' needs, the one who learned that connection meant loss—each developed strategies that made perfect sense at the time.

In our relational work, we explore these patterns not as problems to fix, but as doorways to understanding. We might notice together how you unconsciously hold your breath when feeling vulnerable, or how your body subtly turns away even as you're trying to connect. These somatic cues reveal the deeper choreography of your relational dance—movements learned so early they feel like truth rather than learned responses.

What's powerful about working relationally is that our therapeutic relationship itself becomes a laboratory for change. You might notice familiar patterns arising between us—perhaps the urge to please, to withdraw, or to maintain perfect composure. Here, in the safety of our connection, we can slow down these moments, explore them with curiosity rather than judgment, and experiment with new responses.

This process of (re)connecting with self naturally ripples outward. As you develop a more compassionate and curious relationship with your own experience, you naturally begin relating differently with others. The boundaries that felt impossible become clearer. The vulnerability that felt dangerous becomes a doorway to deeper intimacy. The authentic self that seemed lost begins to emerge.

I bring particular attention to how power, privilege, and systemic forces shape our relational patterns. The ways we've learned to navigate systems of oppression, cultural expectations, and intergenerational trauma all influence how we connect. Acknowledging these realities isn't separate from our healing work—it's integral to understanding the full context of your relational world.

Description teIdentity isn't fixed—it's an ongoing conversation between who we've been, who we are, and who we're becoming. Yet so many of us carry versions of ourselves that were shaped more by others' expectations, societal pressures, or survival needs than by our authentic essence. The journey of identity exploration is about creating space for your true self to emerge and flourish.

In this work, we honor that identity exists at multiple intersections. Your cultural heritage, sexual orientation, gender identity, class background, abilities, and countless other aspects weave together to create your unique experience. As someone dedicated to supporting clients across a wide spectrum of identities, I understand that each aspect of who you are deserves to be seen, validated, and integrated.

Sometimes identity work means grieving—grieving the self we had to hide, the years we spent performing rather than being, the connections lost when we couldn't be authentic. This grief is sacred and valid. It speaks to the profound courage it takes to live truthfully in a world that often demands conformity.

The body holds crucial wisdom about identity. You might notice how your entire system relaxes when you dress in ways that feel authentic, or how certain names or pronouns land in your body with a sense of rightness. Conversely, you might feel the constriction, the subtle bracing that happens when you're performing an identity that isn't truly yours. These somatic experiences are valuable data, guiding us toward what feels most true.

For those navigating LGBTQIA+ identity, this exploration takes place within the context of systemic oppression and discrimination. We work together to separate internalized messages from your truth, to build resilience against external invalidation, and to cultivate communities and practices that affirm your whole self. This isn't just about individual healing—it's about recognizing and resisting the systems that wound us while building networks of support and celebration.

Item descriptionBecause of how brains work, our nervous system must be able to detect that we are “safe enough” in order for processes of learning and growth to occur. When we have been hurt by others or our experiences have remained unseen in important relationships, we can experience residual impacts in present relationships. Working within our therapeutic relationship allows a place to practice noticing and giving you a taste of something different, something that is attuned to you. In doing so, this gives you an opportunity to become more attuned to yourself as well. 

You and I first will put ourselves to the task of establishing a relationship that helps you experience openness to and curiosity around your experience. While we certainly have some influences on growth and learning processes, we do not entirely control or even drive them with our will, might, or intellect. To a large degree, these processes unfold organically. We are simply learning to help them along, or get out of their way. 

Ironically, the more we fight our internal experience, the more we stay stuck, refusing what is, locking it in place which essentially steals against what might otherwise be. 

The key to change is learning to orient to and accept what is, rather than remaining in a battle with it. 

In Sensorimotor Therapy, part of our task is to learn your nervous system and how it responds –– what activates you, what regulates you, etc. –– all within the context of the safety we have built within our relationship. This is where a sense of agency and choice comes in. Opening to the ways we are impacted and what shows up in the present allows us to collaborate, play, challenge, and explore. 

We learn your edges and aid you in coming to make peace with them, understand them, and honor them, so that they are then free to shift naturally. 

We aren’t working hard to make change happen. We are simply giving and seizing opportunities, and practicing witnessing what occurs with curiosity. We work in the present moment, and learn to attune to what is happening now, even when doing the important work of looking at something that happened in the past. 

Whether something occurred last week or years ago, whether that thing was mildly irksome or absolutely horrific, we learn to –– sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly –– be with the entirety of your experiences. 

This process is referred to as integration. This means that we attend not only to your thoughts and feelings, but also to your 5 senses, what your body is holding about the experience, what it is doing in response to it, and what it wants to do in response to it. 

This applies to the whole range of your life’s experience, from repeating or getting stuck in emotions, unwanted relationship patterns, impacts of a single traumatic experience, and all the way to repeated abuse, neglect, or compounded trauma. 

In a way, we are studying how your experience came to be organized as it is unfolding in the present moment, such as: 

• This sensation arose in my body

• This emotion comes up 

• This thought comes in

• My thinking slows/speeds up

• There are no thoughts/lots of thoughts

• An image pops into my mind

• I feel a charge/zing/tightening/etc. in said part(s) of my body

• I feel an overall sense of numbness/emptiness

• My legs want to run

• I want to disappear

• My body feels antsy

• My fists clench

• I want to run

• I want to fight
  

We will attend to the intersections of:

• You and the outside world

• You and others

• Past, present, and future time
  

We attend to all aspects of what arises in consciousness for you around said experience, dynamics, pattern, or struggles.

And, we use “experiments” in session, not to force change, but to better understand what is occurring for you. We will work in a way that incorporates both “top-down” and “bottom-up” learning.

Cascades of learning:

• Top-down learning more often happens in our heads. In example, we might learn about a concept like self-compassion and experiment with subtly shifting the way you talk to yourself. This slowly shifts to feeling a bit more confident and begin to literally hold ourselves up a little higher, our gaze is more up and out as we move around the world rather than looking at the ground, we begin to feel more able to have connections with others, etc.

• Bottom-up learning more likely begins with the body and the learning is almost an afterthought or an outcome that pops up as a result, rather organically, a different kind of effort, in the form of allowing. Perhaps we do an “experiment” of exaggerating a movement or amplifying a sensation you are experiencing in your body. The goal of the experiment is not so much to change it, but to turn up the volume to see it more fully, you get some, often surprising, information about that movement, some aspect of the meaning of it pops right in, now you have learned something about it and we can go from there.

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy recognizes a fundamental truth: our bodies hold our stories. Developed by Dr. Pat Ogden, this approach integrates decades of research in neuroscience, attachment theory, and somatic psychology to create a comprehensive method for healing that engages our complete experience—body, mind, and emotion.

Traditional therapy often privileges the narrative, cognitive aspects of our experience. We talk about what happened, how we feel about it, what we think it means. While this is valuable, it can leave out crucial information held in our bodies—the way our shoulders pull up when discussing certain topics, the sudden emptiness in our chest when touching on loss, the wave of heat that signals anger before we consciously recognize it.

In Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, we develop "somatic literacy"—the ability to read and understand your body's language. We might notice together how your breathing changes when you talk about work stress, or how your posture shifts when discussing relationships. These aren't just interesting observations; they're gateways to understanding and transforming deeply held patterns.

The process is inherently collaborative and experimental. Rather than me interpreting what your body means, we explore together with curiosity. What happens if you let those shoulders drop just a fraction? What do you notice if you allow that gesture your hands started to make? This experimental attitude creates a sense of play and discovery that can make even difficult material more approachable.

One of the most powerful aspects of this work is how it addresses trauma's impact on our nervous system. Trauma often leaves us stuck in states of hyperarousal (always on alert) or hypoarousal (numbed out and disconnected). Through gentle somatic interventions, we help your nervous system remember its natural capacity for regulation—finding that sweet spot where you're alert but calm, engaged but not overwhelmed.

We also work with what we call "somatic resources"—body-based experiences that support regulation and wellbeing. This might be the feeling of your feet firmly on the ground, the warmth of placing a hand on your heart, or the expansion that comes with a full breath. Building these resources creates a stable foundation from which to approach more challenging material.

Traditional therapy often privileges the narrative, cognitive aspects of our experience. We talk about what happened, how we feel about it, what we think it means. While this is valuable, it can leave out crucial information held in our bodies—the way our shoulders pull up when discussing certain topics, the sudden emptiness in our chest when touching on loss, the wave of heat that signals anger before we consciously recognize it.

In Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, we develop "somatic literacy"—the ability to read and understand your body's language. We might notice together how your breathing changes when you talk about work stress, or how your posture shifts when discussing relationships. These aren't just interesting observations; they're gateways to understanding and transforming deeply held patterns.

The process is inherently collaborative and experimental. Rather than me interpreting what your body means, we explore together with curiosity. What happens if you let those shoulders drop just a fraction? What do you notice if you allow that gesture your hands started to make? This experimental attitude creates a sense of play and discovery that can make even difficult material more approachable.

One of the most powerful aspects of this work is how it addresses trauma's impact on our nervous system. Trauma often leaves us stuck in states of hyperarousal (always on alert) or hypoarousal (numbed out and disconnected). Through gentle somatic interventions, we help your nervous system remember its natural capacity for regulation—finding that sweet spot where you're alert but calm, engaged but not overwhelmed.

We also work with what we call "somatic resources"—body-based experiences that support regulation and wellbeing. This might be the feeling of your feet firmly on the ground, the warmth of placing a hand on your heart, or the expansion that comes with a full breath. Building these resources creates a stable foundation from which to approach more challenging material.

I-CBT specifically targets OCD by addressing obsessional doubts, looping thoughts, intense emotions, and compulsions, aiming to re-establish self-trust and help clients direct their energy toward what matters. ERP, including ACT-based ERP, helps clients acclimate to anxiety, phobia, or OCD triggers, tolerate discomfort, and shift perceptions of threat. It works to minimize engagement in worry, compulsions, rituals, avoidance, and rumination, enabling clients to learn they can handle discomfort and live more fully.

It is common for clients with OCD to pursue addressing their symptoms with psychotherapy, and be offered an approach called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Many report feeling overwhelmed by worksheets that, while effective for many other conditions, often do not support their experience with obsessive-compulsive symptoms. 

In my practice, I have found Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (I-CBT) to be effective. 

I-CBT is designed specifically and solely for treating OCD. This cognitive, mindfulness-based approach looks at the stories OCD tells you that make you doubt yourself. 

Through targeting the obsessional doubts that are driven by OCD, we attend to the looping thoughts, intense emotions, and your compulsions. 

I-CBT’s ultimate goal is to re-establish your sense of trust in yourself, ground you in a more solid sense of what is real and true for you, and help you put your energy where you want in your life. 

ERP is based on acclimating you to anxiety, phobia, or OCD triggers, and learning to tolerate that discomfort. It helps shift your perceptions around what serves as a threat to you. 

Together, we will look at your helpful and unhelpful safety behaviors, identify how your fears are organized with respect to OCD, and work to minimize your need to engage in worry, your compulsions, rituals, avoidance, and/or rumination. 

Why do we want to do this and what helps keep us motivated to face such discomfort? 

This is where ACT-based ERP comes in. 

Sure we want to reduce your suffering, of course. However, we also want to orient you toward doing so in such a way that helps you get clear on what matters to you and how you want to live. 

That is what OCD robs people of. All of that time, energy, and/or anguish being directed toward preventing something rather than invested in what you care about and want out of your life. 

ERP is based on the model that people with OCD are experiencing the same thing that everyone has  –– intrusive thoughts –– but folks with OCD are having an overreaction in their nervous system and registering these as important instead of dismissible, and assigning a lot of meaning to them. This approach can work especially well for phobias, and is a good fit for some folks with OCD, anxiety, and panic disorder. 

We collaborate, but you lead. The point is not to overwhelm you, but to truly learn through experience that you can handle the discomfort. This often allows the discomfort to shift, either by lessening or becoming more tolerable, which means it then begins to take up less space in your life.

Relational psychotherapy starts from a simple but profound premise: we can be wounded in relationship, and we can heal in relationship. This approach recognizes that our sense of self, our patterns of connecting, and our core beliefs about worth and safety all develop through our early relationships and continue to evolve through ongoing connections.

In this model, the therapeutic relationship isn't just the container for the work—it is the work. The dynamics that unfold between us become a microcosm of your relational world, offering real-time opportunities to explore, understand, and transform patterns. When you notice yourself wanting to please, feeling anxious about taking up time, or struggling to disagree—these aren't distractions from therapy; they're exactly where the healing happens.

What makes this approach particularly powerful is its emphasis on the here-and-now. While we certainly explore your history and how past relationships shaped you, we're equally interested in what's happening between us in the moment. This immediacy brings patterns to life in a way that purely talking about them cannot. You're not just describing how you tend to minimize your needs; you might catch yourself doing it in our sessions, in real-time, allowing us to explore it together as it happens.

The relational approach also recognizes that the therapist isn't a blank slate or neutral observer. I bring my own humanity to our work—my own history, patterns, and responses. This doesn't mean making therapy about me, but rather acknowledging that we're two human beings in relationship, each affecting the other. This mutual influence, when held with appropriate boundaries and ethical consideration, becomes part of the healing process.

Through this work, you develop what we might call "relational flexibility"—the ability to respond rather than react, to choose rather than repeat, to stay connected to yourself even while connecting with others. You learn to recognize when old patterns are activated and develop the capacity to pause, reflect, and choose a different response.

Culturally responsive therapy isn't an add-on or special technique—it's a fundamental recognition that healing cannot happen in a cultural vacuum. Our experiences are shaped by the cultural contexts we navigate, the systems of power we encounter, and the collective histories we carry. True healing must acknowledge and address these realities.

This approach means understanding that what might be labeled as "symptoms" could actually be adaptive responses to systemic oppression. The hypervigilance of someone navigating racism daily isn't paranoia—it's a necessary survival strategy. The "guardedness" of someone who's experienced discrimination isn't a trust issue to be fixed—it's wisdom born from experience.

In our work together, we explore how cultural messages have shaped your sense of self, your relationships, and your place in the world. We might examine the intergenerational transmission of both trauma and resilience, honoring the struggles your ancestors faced while also recognizing the strength and wisdom they've passed down. This isn't about dwelling in victimhood but about accurately contextualizing your experience and recognizing the very real forces you navigate.

As a bilingual provider, I understand that language itself carries culture. The ability to express yourself in your primary language, to use the words that carry the full weight and nuance of your experience, can be crucial for deep therapeutic work. Some experiences simply don't translate, and forcing them into another language can distance us from their emotional truth.

We also attend to the ways multiple identities intersect in your experience. Your gender, race, class, sexual orientation, ability status, immigration history, and other identities don't exist in isolation—they interact in complex ways that create your unique experience. This intersectional lens helps us understand the full complexity of your story without reducing you to any single aspect of identity.