Whole Being Psychotherapy
About my practice
Welcome to my website -
It is my wish for you that therapy will bring you the profound gifts of healing and inner growth. We all need healing. Life is constant change, but the results we gain in therapy can become our solid and unshakeable ground.
Entering therapy should feel like you are walking into a place of great refuge and rest. I want to assure you that your true self, and the truth of your experience in general, are welcome here. The world makes great demands on us to be someone or something in particular, and we are rarely in an atmosphere that allows us the freedom to not have to perform, be, or look a certain way.
As an integrative therapist, I am immersed in many psychological approaches, perspectives, modalities, and techniques, and you'll find a lot of information about these things on my website. I want to make sure that you have the option to feel more informed and empowered. Integrative psychology done well is invested in the total care of you. Read as much or as little as feels good for you in your current process.
If we're going to engage ourselves in an activity of self-transformation, and one that truly impacts our brain, mind, and body, we have the right to understand every aspect of the therapeutic process.
It's of vital importance to understand that not all therapies and modalities of healing achieve the same goals, and that some of them can, at best, be ineffective, while others can actually harm clients. You really want to find the therapies that are optimal and tailored specifically for you, and integrative psychotherapy can help you achieve that.
Integrative psychology is the most complete psychological view because it is the view that is open and receptive to all valid and effective psychotherapeutic views and techinques. It doesn't favor one school of psychological thought or modality over another, or try to fit anybody - nor the whole of reality - into a single, narrow, predefined box. Integrative psychology values such principles as critical thinking, complexity, diversity, wholeness, autonomy, individuality, inclusion, and non-violence.
My Background
I moved to the Boulder-Denver area from Philadelphia in 2009 in order to continue my formal psychological studies, and also to be centrally located in one of the most creative, advanced, and concentrated healing communities in the United States.
I finished my Bachelor’s at Naropa University with a degree in “Contemplative Psychology”, which had an emphasis in Somatic (body-centered) Psychology. Naropa University offers an integrative education that includes both traditional Western psychology, and also gives students the chance to study and explore their own psychological processes through various somatic, meditative, and interpersonal disciplines.
Moving to Boulder also gave me the chance to continue working with a school of psychology that I first encountered in Philadelphia, in a more intensive and ongoing manner. This school, which is known as the "Diamond Approach", is an organization dedicated to the development of our human potential. It utilizes Western psychology, somatic and meditative practices, as well as a method of Socratic inquiry. I have been involved in this school since 2007, and it has been one of my core influences as a psychotherapist.
A few years after graduating Naropa, I completed my Master’s Degree in Counseling at Regis University in Denver. I completed my practicum at the Eating Disorder Foundation, and my internship at People House, which is an affordable counseling program. Both are located in Denver.
For the last 15 years, I have been heavily immersed in personal and group psychotherapeutic work with various teachers, groups, healing communities, therapists, modalities, fellow colleagues, and peers. I have additional formal training in the modalities of Internal Family Systems Therapy and Somatic Experiencing, as well as in various forms of mindfulness meditation. I’m passionate about the science and art of psychotherapy.
Of late, I have been particularly diving into the work of the brilliant philosopher and teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti, who lived in the 20th century, and have spent time at the Krishnamurti Foundation in Ojai, California. Krishnamurti was concerned with understanding the roots of psychological conflict through the process of self-observation.
In addition, I have been working with paths and methodologies, such as "Waking Down in Mutuality" and "Trillium Awakening", that critique "dissociative" forms of psychological and spiritual work that disconnect, pathologize, and shame any aspect of our humanness. These are profoundly integrative paths that deeply heal what Saniel Bonder calls the "spirit-matter" split, which is a painful rupture at the core of our being that makes us feel like we have to choose certain aspects of ourselves over others.
My general orientation is always to understand the most effective therapeutic and healing modalities that can promote balanced and integrated development of the whole person. Our potential for healing and self-expansion as individuals is truly infinite and we are extremely fortunate to be living at a time where possibilities for an integrated, inclusive development are plentiful.
Services
Group Work
Group work includes group therapy, specialized classes on certain subjects, psycho-spiritual education, and small groups dedicated to spiritual work. Groups meet either occasionally or on an ongoing basis.
When psychology and the depths of being meet each other
Adolescents and Young Adults
I welcome those clients who are having general difficulties with school, family life, or peer groups. Developing a relationship with a trusted ally can be immensely supportive. I practice traditional psychotherapy with this age group
Therapy can be a supportive and safe context for discovering who we really are in relationships, and for practicing new relational skills. We shouldn't settle for anything less than real, authentic relationship.
Healing Trauma Through the Body
We're extremely fortunate to be able to integrate cutting-edge somatic therapies that help us regain our natural confidence in in our body and nervous system. This is the most gentle, sensitive, and intelligent approach to healing trauma.