How I Work

I have specialized training in evidence-based treatments including:

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

• Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP)

• Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)

• Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a mindfulness based cognitive therapy focused around two main processes: 1) developing acceptance of difficult and unwanted thoughts and feelings (many of which are out of our personal control) and, 2) acting on our values to create a meaningful life.

• Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), focuses on overcoming distressing and disabling anxiety by facing fears. This happens by engaging with feared situations, which eventually creates and strengthens new and improved behavioral repertoires.

• Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP) uses the relationship you and I build to pay attention to and shape behaviors. We do this by seeing if the problems you are having in daily life are occurring in some form in the therapy session.

• Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is geared toward developing a secure connection with others—the research on attachment science shows that developing secure bonds leads to greater resilience and a more coherent and positive sense of self.

At times I may encourage slowing down to pay closer attention to behavior loops, memories, and emotions in order to hold challenging thoughts and feelings more lightly. It can be valuable to examine how thoughts connect to physical sensation and nervous-system response because our body cues impact our feelings which impact how we behave.

I work across the lifespan with adults, couples, and adolescents. These are a few of the concerns I work with:

• Marriage and intimacy issues

• Interpersonal difficulty

• Anxiety and depression

• OCD, and specific phobias

• Emotion dysregulation

• Grief, illness, loss