From birth, our experiences with others and the world shape our emotions and minds.
We learn about ourselves through relationships. Sometimes what we learned in the past causes problems for us in the present day. These old messages become part of our unconscious minds. Then we live them out everyday.
Transgender people learn transphobic messages about their gender and their bodies. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, queer, asexual and other sexuality-expansive people internalize messages about themselves, their relationships, and their sexuality. Polyamorous people learn that their relationships and desires are shameful. People who enjoy kink or identify as kinksters can integrate sex-shaming ideas. People dealing with multiplicities of oppressed identities (like a BIPOC polyamorous kinky bisexual transgender person) can have these messages be more exponentially more damaging.
Trauma, neglect and microaggressions can keep us from having the intimacy, career or life that we want. Without conscious awareness, these unfortunate lessons can cause us to sabotage ourselves and/or our relationships with others. We can unlearn these to live more fully.
There is an intrapsychic reason why depression, anxiety, and other “disorders” manifest more often in LGBTQIA+ people. Many therapists focus on the outside world as part of the treatment as this is their original source. But this is limited as it doesn’t address the parts of the mind that have accepted those oppressive messages as true.
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy focuses on the unconscious and working through what may not be easily accessible or acceptable.
If someone believes, deep down, that they are unworthy of love, growth, or acceptance, other treatments that don’t address this directly will fail. I often work with clients who have tried other therapies unsuccessfully.
I help individuals and couples understand their experiences and patterns, both past and present.
We can collaborate to recognize your strengths and explore problem patterns to move towards a more authentic, fulfilled, and meaningful life. Together, we engage bravely (and playfully) with unexamined thoughts, feelings and experiences!
I focus on in-depth, contemporary, relational psychoanalytic therapy that brings sociocultural contexts into the room. In collaboration with my clients, I hope to co-create a therapeutic relationship that encourages my clients to process and fully experience emotions, move through depression and anxiety, and reframe negative thoughts and patterns with a deeper understanding of their origins.
My areas of interest are varied, but all have a theme of finding greater authenticity in a world that can be harsh to those who are different. I do this by helping you deconstruct negative messages that have become internalized and are being acted out in ways that hinder genuine self-expression.
