Therapy Services
Therapy to change how you relate to the world
While it can be helpful to talk about our lives, it is easy to continue using our heads to avoid the discomfort that arises in our present experience. Rather than talking about it over and over, I encourage an experiential approach to understanding your life, to include your emotions, your thoughts, and your beliefs about the world as it happens inside and out.
it's not about what's happening ``out there``. It's about what's happening ``in here``. For every external event that arises outside of our own mind and body, there is a dependent internal response within our mind-body. Most of our habitual patterns are an attempt to remove or alter the world around us, as we think this will remove the discomfort that arises within. We have within us the ultimate power to change how we relate to what happens around us. The key to this change begins with a sense of mastery of our own body.
Mindfulness is the technique we use to take a good look at the way things really are. It is developing the skill to watch our own repeated patterns of thoughts and fantasies about how things are supposed to be, and then being truthful about how life actually is. Mindfulness is the courage to be with this realization that our lives aren't what we want them to be, and the fearlessness to live more fully in all that we are, including all the beauty and pain.
Sometimes coming to therapy is the easiest thing you’ve done in a long time. Yet for some, it can be a difficult choice to make. There is a common misunderstanding in our society that we are supposed to be fully-grown, independent, infinitely-capable people that don’t ask for help. That we are all-powerful, and that feelings, emotions, and otherwise self-knowledge is a waste of time. And yet here we are. When we look into our own hearts, we find a burning desire to be vulnerable, to be seen fully, in all that we are, and to rediscover our own basic goodness and well-being.
Another common misunderstanding we all share is that the best way to live is to avoid pain and just get comfortable. We even go to the extreme of thinking there is a version of life that doesn’t have any pain or discomfort at all. While I can’t help with any of that, I can help you to live with more ease, acceptance, and resilience in moments of difficulty.
In therapy, I can help you change the way you relate to your life and those around you.
The more information you can provide, the better. All personal details sent using modern encryption standards, and I am obligated by law to not share any personal information without your consent. Paper applications and intake forms are also available for download if you prefer. You may fill those out and bring them to your first appointment.
I received a Master’s in Counseling Psychology from Naropa University — a Buddhist contemplative school in Boulder, Colorado. I have received additional training and education in the Hakomi Method, existential psychotherapy, and body-centered trauma therapy. I am a Licensed Professional Counselor In the state of Oregon.
I use a form of therapy that is experiential, body-centered, and mindfulness-based. While it is helpful to talk about your life story, what’s more important is the process that underlies your personal narrative. This is the area that is often most difficult to see, and harbors difficult thoughts and emotions. At times, this form of therapy is very challenging, but I can offer two pieces of assurance: I will never ask you to explore something that I wouldn’t explore in myself, and, I won’t ask you to experience something that I’m not able to sit with in the room.
Individuals: 50-minutes $135-$165
Couples: 50-minutes $175-$200
No. If you are in financial hardship, I offer a sliding-scale payment option based on income. My belief is that if we are the right fit for therapy, and cost alone would otherwise deter you from coming, I would rather us work together than not at all. Even at the bottom of the sliding scale, therapy is not free.
Scheduling your appointment
After submitting your application, you will be contacted within 2 business days to schedule an in-person consultation. Under normal circumstances, we can typically schedule our first session within 5 business days. You may request that I not leave phone messages for you, or only contact you through a specific phone number or email address.
What to expect during your first visit.
This introductory meeting is meant to give us both a sense of what it’s like to be with each other. We will explore a little of what you hope to get out of therapy, what you hope for or expect from your therapist, and if you have any fears or concerns about beginning therapy. I will provide some conceptual and experiential information about the kind of work that I do, so hopefully you will know exactly what to expect from our work together. It turns out that the therapeutic relationship is one of the most important factors of change, so together, we will want to decide if it’s a good fit.
“For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been given to us, the ultimate, the final problem and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation.”
~Rainer Maria Rilke
Communication, intimacy, parenting, personal values. These are just a few of the areas of difficulty that arise in committed relationships. At some point, all relationships reach a critical stage, when something different must be done. Sometimes it looks like separation is the only way, but the truth is, we just go and repeat our old patterns with the next person.
I can help you develop better communication skills, manage conflict, and renew your commitments to one another.
All major life transitions have 3 stages — an ending, a middle transition period, and a beginning. Most of the time we try to go right from the end of an event, to the beginning of something new. This middle stage is very important, but reaching it requires going very deep into ones self, and residing in many psychological unknowns.
No matter the stage of your transition, I can help bring attention to areas that are often overlooked, and create meaning and intention through ritual and ceremony.
“If your everyday practice is to open to all your emotions, to all the people you meet, to all the situations you encounter, without closing down, trusting that you can do that — then that will take you as far as you can go. And then you’ll understand all the teachings that anyone has ever taught.”
~Pema Chodron
Sometimes we need a place where we can voice our feelings, have them heard, and reflected back in a meaningful way.
Learning to identify, express, and regulate your emotional experience is one of the more advanced developmental stages that is not taught to us.
“All addictions — alcohol or drugs, sex addiction or internet addiction, gambling or shopping — are attempts to regulate our internal emotional states because we’re not comfortable, and the discomfort originates from somewhere.”
~Gabor Mate
I can work with you to see where your addiction comes from, and we can begin to develop new ways of relating to yourself and others, in a way that gives you the same rewards that your addictions do.
Sometimes there’s not at easy way to describe your current situation in life, or maybe you know a little about all of these issues. Or maybe you are thinking this whole therapy thing is a sham. It definitely couldn’t hurt to try. Or would it.
Grief, and the intense suffering that it brings, is an essential component of being human — of being born, living, and dying. How we meet the death of those around us will determine how we meet our own death. Yet grief can remain such an intense experience that we pass it up and just try to get on with our lives. Not only is this a form of self-hatred, but it’s also denying many amazing gifts that can come from the grieving process, such as learning to face the fear of our own mortality.