Asking for help is a sign of strength.

What if life could be gentler and more stable? What if you didn’t have to struggle so much? If you are looking for guidance with stress management, trauma, anxiety, grief, spirituality, or just feeling overwhelmed by life, it takes courage to ask for help. Admitting you can’t do everything on your own, is the first step toward achieving wellness in a fast paced, demanding world.  The good news is, asking for help gets easier with a little practice. Good for you for taking this first step.

I am a licensed therapist here to guide you in a process towards goals that you decide in therapy.  I use curiosity, self-disclosure (where helpful/relevant), and challenging questions to help you uncover the hidden baggage that is keeping you from being your best self.. The way in which we cope in the world is greatly influenced by how we see the world.  Dealing with anxiety, depression or grief can be difficult but I believe by using “baby steps” in a safe space, growth and healing happen quickly. I help people who are curious about understanding the roots of things, to make sense of their story and their patterns so that they can move forward without repeating old pattens from the past and without having to be in therapy for years and years.  My goal is to facilitate an awakening within you and deep healing of long-held problematic patterns and destructive core beliefs that are keeping you from living life to its fullest and finding joy and peace of mind in your daily life.

Please contact me to schedule a free initial consultation.

503-309-8872     |     Send Email

Request your free consultation appointment

I look forward to helping you make the first step toward your well being.

The Benefits of Therapy

If you’ve made it here, you’re ready to start working through your struggles and for life to be less painful. By seeking therapy, you are taking action to change what no longer works in your life. I am most passionate about working with individuals who feel like they are “not good enough: or who feel broken or flawed on some way.  So many times we take on unconscious beliefs about our life from early on that stem from trauma, neglect, abuse or loss and those hidden but powerful beliefs end up dictating most of the rest of our life.  Ask yourself if you’ve ever secretly told yourself “I’m unlovable” “I’m invisible” “I don’t matter” “I’m not good enough” “I’m  worthless”  “I’m inadequate” “I’m a failure” “I’m powerless”…. I could go on and on, but you get the point.  These negative core beliefs that we took on as children have amazing power over us all of our lives, until we heal them.  And healing them is not only possible, its very do-able.

The child you once were does not disappear. They do not fade into the past like an old photograph or dissolve with the passage of time. They live within you still woven into your fears, your longings, your habits of self-protection. They are there in the way your body tenses at a raised voice, in the way you hesitate before asking for what you need, in the ache you feel when love seems just out of reach. Healing is not about leaving this child behind. It is about turning toward them with the love and presence they were once denied. Trauma is not just what happened to us, it is also what did not happen. The touch that never came, the safety that was absent, the soothing voice that never told us we are enough just as we are. When we experience wounding at a young age, we lose trust, we lose connection, we lose who we were meant to be. The child learns to survive, to adapt, to become small, quiet, or pleasing, anything to maintain attachment. And so, they remain trapped in us, frozen in time, waiting for someone to come back for them.  But no one is coming except you.

Healing is not about discarding the past, as if it didn’t happen. Its about remembering. Not in the sense of reliving pain endlessly, but in the sense of reclaiming what was lost. We do not heal by rejecting the child within us.  To truly heal, we must become the very presence our younger selves longed for.  We must speak to them gently, hold them in their sorrow, let them grieve the love they never received.

As an experienced therapist, I work with people who have experienced trauma in their life,  no matter how big or small, whether it be in their family of origin, their relationships, their work place or their communities. My clients often feel overwhelmed and confused by their past experiences, and how those have impacted them emotionally, physically, socially and psychically.  Navigating through life’s transitions is hard enough, but it can be downright daunting when we have “baggage” hanging on from our past.   I help individuals who recognize that they continue to repeat the same patterns in their lives and relationships and have begun to feel exhausted and defeated. Together we will dig deep into those patterns to gain insight and awareness of why they were created and help you heal from the past hurts that perpetuate them without feeling like running away or wanting to give up.   I use a variety of approaches. and a bunch of fancy techniques,  including Energy Psychology/Body Centered Techniques for releasing trauma quickly and permanently, Shamanic healing methods including soul retrieval,  EMDR,  Emotionally Focused Therapy, Past Life Regression and Hypnotherapy,  We will use those techniques to help you navigate the minefield of old hurts and wounds. and all the self-defeating beliefs/behaviors that came out of those hurts,  so you can come out on the other side once and for all.  When we experience trauma it can get stuck in parts of your brain and body. Our work together allows it to be metabolized and neutralized and emotionally cleared out of the body.   Lets work together to come up with the best plan for you. The goal of our therapy sessions together, will be to help you develop the emotional fortitude needed to move more easily through difficult times and lead a more meaningful and successful life.

“It only takes one person to change your life — you. ”

— Ruth Casey