Just where you are—that is the place to start. —Pema Chodron
Services
“Play gives children the opportunity to search for and experiment with alternative solutions to their problems”
—Jerome Singer
COUNSELING
I enjoy working with clients of all ages to reduce suffering, restore balance, nurture peace, and bring more joy into their lives. Toward that end, I collaborate with clients to develop new and more effective coping skills, gain deeper personal insights, and heal the habits, old patterns and life stories, which often stand in the way to living more present and functional lives. I help clients reframe and understand the struggles they bring into session, while also creating a road map to navigate their way out of and through their particular challenges. With children and teens, I offer a variety of art therapy modalities which provide hands-on, experiential forums to explore the often difficult emotions or stories at play in their lives.
SANDTRAY THERAPY
I love using the modality of sand and figurines with children and teens (as well as adults who are willing to play!) as a tactile and creative means to investigate the images and stories inside ourselves that can be more difficult to express with words. Often, themes and patterns will reveal themselves through the placement of figures in the sand, and together with the client we will become curious about the meanings and associations each client brings to the figures and the stories they tell - which are often the unsolved, uncomfortable, and unprocessed stories of our lives. Play allows us to integrate and heal these stories.
SOULCOLLAGE®
Drawing from my training in the SoulCollage® process, I invite clients of all ages to create collage cards out of a variety cut out magazine images. The client is encouraged to intuitively select images that they are drawn to, then to glue these pictures onto a card. This process can help visually depict aspects of ourselves and our lives which we may be having a hard time understanding, manifesting, or integrating. Much like Sandtray Therapy, this creative art therapy is another modality that moves beyond just talk therapy, and allows images to broaden our expression of ourselves, our suffering, and our joy, deepening our self-understanding and internal wisdom, while also releasing aspects of ourselves which may never have been given “voice” before.
“The gift of an image is that it provides a place to watch your soul”
– James Hillman
"“We can make changes in our lives, we can live consciously rather than mechanically, we can open our hearts and we can be more fully alive"
—Sharon Salzburg
GRIEF THERAPY
I have both professional training and clinical experience supporting all ages through the grief process after the loss of a loved one, as well as helping those coping with anticipatory loss during a time a loved one struggles with a life-limiting illness. My background in grief counseling can also serve to support clients going through many other types of losses; divorce, job loss, child leaving home, chronic illness, change in residence and/or financial state retirement, the aging process. Finally, I have walked the path of grief on a personal level, dealing with sudden, unexpected losses within my own family system. Grief is a normal process of reacting to a loss. However, for some of us, especially in our society which does not offer rituals, outlets, nor a language for mourning, or in our own complicated family units where grief can often be left unacknowledged, we suffer from our losses in ways that stop us from being able to go on living fully and healthfully. If your grief feels insurmountable, without a voice, or you feel stuck in your sadness, I can help you navigate the landscape of loss and grief.
