The best advice I ever received about practicing psychotherapy was, “be a human first and a therapist second.” To this day, I hold this sentiment in mind while sitting with my clients. While my work is informed by robust training in depth psychology and psychoanalytic thought, I ultimately hold the view that you are the expert on your own life - my skillset is in guiding conversations so that you may discover things for yourself, with my support. My goal is to provide a safe space in which to challenge yourself and heal - I do this by taking a warm, but direct, approach in our conversations. My clients and I laugh a lot together too.

I focus on helping people separate their preferences from their problems, identify values that are most important to them, and determine the actions that will best express those values. I utilize the relationship between us to help you develop a stronger, more truthful relationship with yourself. From a place of deep awareness, you will feel more empowered to make choices that are right for you, more congruence, connection, and authenticity in your life, more freedom from what burdens you, and more control over your story.

In my work, I use an integrative approach, combining concrete skills-based interventions, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectic Behavior Therapy (DBT) and Exposure Response Prevention (ERP) with somatic modalities, such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) as well as Internal Family Systems (IFS). The framework I use to bring it all together is grounded in relational and humanistic thought, as well as depth psychology.

I earned my MA from the University of Southern California (USC) and have been practicing in the field for over 10 years. I completed my initial training at the Southern California Counseling Center. Prior to starting my own practice, I worked as a therapist for many years at Monte Nido, an eating disorder treatment center. I went on to become the Program Director of Center For Discovery’s PHP/IOP in Woodland Hills, CA.

My pursuit of this work has been driven, in large part, by my own challenges, some of which began in early childhood. I struggled along the way with "too-big" feelings, a sense of not belonging, unbearable loneliness, being outside of my own body, and thinking myself out of happiness a thousand times but never once into it. I started East Side Therapy because I am a fellow traveler, and what I know for sure is that therapy is a place where these moments of painful human experience become invaluable lessons. It is a space where I can take the things I was told were weaknesses and turn them into my most powerful strengths. And I will choose that every day of the week. 

In addition to psychotherapy, I also ofter supervision for associate therapists as well as consultation for licensed therapists, parents, and treatment centers. For more information, please visit my personal website here.