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FAQ'S: Where, How, Why, What... |
Where do sessions take place?
How often should I expect to attend therapy?
Why do people come to therapy?
You might be here because you’re feeling:
Whatever brings you here, we ca explore it together and your pace, with curiosity, compassion, and care.
What do we talk about in therapy?
What is your experience with diverse issues and diverse groups?
This is not simply theoretical for me, it is an active lens that shapes how I listen, respond, and build therapeutic relationships.
In addition to my clinical experience, I also bring personal lived experience as a member of the queer community and the body neutrality community. I came out later in life after a 13-year marriage to a man, which gives me a nuanced understanding of identity development, masking, grief, authenticity, relational shifts, and the complexity that can accompany major life transitions and coming out experiences.
I have had the privilege of supporting individuals from many backgrounds and communities navigating a wide range of nuanced and deeply personal experiences, including:
What connects all of these experiences is my commitment to showing up with presence, attunement, and respect—recognizing that each person is the expert of their own life.
- I offer sessions both in person and via telehealth. My office is located in the beautiful Alphabet District of NW Portland, and I also meet with clients virtually through a secure telehealth platform for your convenience and comfort. You can wear your fuzzy slippers to either type of session!
How often should I expect to attend therapy?
- That’s a great question, and the answer varies from person to person.
Some clients meet weekly, others bi-weekly, depending on your goals, needs, and availability. I offer monthly only to clients who are transitioning down from bi-weekly work. We’ll discuss what frequency best supports your healing and growth, and reassess as needed throughout our work together.
Why do people come to therapy?
- People come to therapy for many different reasons. The past several years have been emotionally, physically, and psychologically challenging for many of us, and sometimes we reach a point where support, reflection, and change feel necessary.
You might be here because you’re feeling:
- Anxious, overwhelmed, fearful, or emotionally exhausted
- Stuck, disconnected, numb, or grieving
- Impacted by a major life transition, breakup, career change, or loss
- Concerned about coping patterns—your own or someone else’s—that no longer feel sustainable or supportive
- Frustrated by recurring communication struggles or relationship dynamics
- Burdened by complicated family relationships, including estrangement, boundary challenges, misunderstanding, rejection, or unresolved hurt
- Navigating queer identity exploration, coming out, identity shifts, community belonging, or the emotional impact of acceptance and rejection
- Emotionally impacted by political strife, cultural polarization, systemic stress, or feeling unsafe, unseen, or exhausted by the current social climate
- Distressed by your relationship with your body, food, self-worth, or identity
- Wanting deeper support around substance use recovery and the emotional experiences connected to it
- Seeking support in intimate relationships around communication, conflict cycles, emotional connection, sexuality, or understanding one another more fully
- Carrying the impact of trauma, chronic stress, or painful past experiences that continue to affect your present life
Whatever brings you here, we ca explore it together and your pace, with curiosity, compassion, and care.
What do we talk about in therapy?
- Whatever you feel ready to talk about. There’s no pressure to have it all figured out before we begin. In fact, you don’t have to know where to start. I’m really good at asking the right questions to help us get there together.
- Whether it’s navigating your day-to-day emotions, unpacking your past, understanding your patterns, or just saying things out loud you’ve never said before, this is a space where you don’t have to do it alone.
What is your experience with diverse issues and diverse groups?
- As a white, cisgender female clinician, I understand that you may wonder how I approach the complex, lived realities of those whose identities, cultures, or experiences differ from my own. It’s a valid and important question, and one I hold with deep respect.
My approach is rooted in a lifelong commitment to cultural humility and relational justice, shaped early by graduate training grounded in the Transcultural Perspective. This framework, which informs every aspect of my practice, emphasizes five core dimensions: - Cultural Knowledge – continually learning about the histories, identities, and lived experiences of others
- Cultural Humility – recognizing that cultural competence is a lifelong process, not a checklist
- Power, Privilege, and Oppression – acknowledging how systems impact individual experience and access
- Positionality and Self-Reflexivity – critically reflecting on how my own identity shows up in the room
- Respectful Partnership – fostering collaboration, not hierarchy, in the therapeutic relationship
This is not simply theoretical for me, it is an active lens that shapes how I listen, respond, and build therapeutic relationships.
In addition to my clinical experience, I also bring personal lived experience as a member of the queer community and the body neutrality community. I came out later in life after a 13-year marriage to a man, which gives me a nuanced understanding of identity development, masking, grief, authenticity, relational shifts, and the complexity that can accompany major life transitions and coming out experiences.
I have had the privilege of supporting individuals from many backgrounds and communities navigating a wide range of nuanced and deeply personal experiences, including:
- Body Liberation & Fatphobia: Supporting those healing from internalized fatphobia, disordered eating, and body shame in a world that pathologizes larger bodies
- Race, Culture & Discrimination: Holding space for clients processing both internalized and externalized racism, colorism, cultural rejection, and identity conflict
- Generational Trauma: Navigating intergenerational differences and the emotional weight carried by trauma in families
- LGBTQ+ Identity Development: Offering affirming care for those coming out in religious or unsupportive families, exploring gender identity, or transitioning
- Intimate Partner Violence: Providing trauma-informed, nonjudgmental support for survivors of emotionally and physically abusive relationships
- Grief: supporting clients through death, identity shifts, estrangement, divorce, relationship endings, and ambiguous grief
- Political & Social Stress — processing the emotional impact of political polarization, systemic injustice, minority stress, and feeling unsafe or unseen in the current social climate
- Substance Use & Recovery — working with clients exploring recovery, harm reduction, shame, relapse cycles, and underlying trauma
- Self-Harm: Creating safe containers for those experiencing cutting, purging, hitting-self, and suicidality.
- Inpatient & Residential Treatment Integration: Assisting clients before, during, and after in-patient treatment, including transitions back to daily life
What connects all of these experiences is my commitment to showing up with presence, attunement, and respect—recognizing that each person is the expert of their own life.
