Description
My clients have taught me that I work best with those who are interested in achieving their full potential and are dealing with the stressors and intricacies of day-to-day life and relationships along the way. I get feedback from those I work with that I am warm, compassionate, and effective. My clients regularly show me and tell me how they are feeling better and navigating life in a way that works better for them and their unique individual goals. While I find it important to know what’s going on in my clients’ lives, that is in service of our working relationship and my understanding of you, so that we can dig deep to find lasting healing and change. I prefer to work hard and see tangible progress, but I defer to you to determine the intensity and pace of therapy.
You are living in context (not the therapy room) and so I work to accurately name it. This includes understanding systemic oppression, discrimination trauma, socialization, and the forces often working on black women in primarily white settings. I pair this with my deep understanding of psychological theory and current research, so that I can hold up my end of the therapy bargain – presenting to you the best of what psychology and science has to offer – so that you can hold up your end – deciding what resonates and what direction and strategies will serve you best. I find it important to diffuse the doctor-patient power differential as much as possible, and so strive to disclose everything that might be helpful to you as we do the work – no secret judgments, no secret anything.
I have a deep understanding of racial identity development, weathering, intersectionality, code switching, and other ways we straddle two or more identities within a life, including transitions along socioeconomic status. I am trained in EMDR (a targeted trauma method), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and Functional Analysis, and rely deeply on a real therapeutic relationship between myself and my clients. I am experienced in treating complex trauma, anxiety and panic, depression, identity development, perinatal issues, and relationships and work to include your own community and spiritual resources for fuller and grounded-in-your-life treatment.