About me

I am a licensed independent clinical social worker (LICSW). I come to the practice of psychotherapy with plenty of real life experience.  This experience helps me to be present with clients in way that training alone can not.

My goal is to meet you with  honesty, humanity and  compassion, holding a safe space for you to discover yourself in your time.

I am trained in several approaches but I am most excited about Somatic Transformation, an approach that allows you to attend to all of yourself  in a  warm and excepting space and has helped me facilitate people making real change for themselves. This practice is a clinical application of the newest research in attachment and somatic psychotherapy. It validates the oldest human wisdom of relationship and healing.

Studies and Training

In my excitement and commitment to building clinical skills, I entered an institute-like setting, after completing my Masters Degree in Social Work at the University of Washington in 2005, to deepen the clinical skills I had begun to develop in school, internship, and life. I completed an additional two year post grad internship with the Alliance Psychotherapy Clinic, where I studied various clinical theories*, attended a weekly group clinical consultation and worked with three different supervisors as I practiced long term psychotherapy with men and women. The result was to give me a thorough clinical education.

In my studies at the Alliance I was lucky enough work with a variety of skilled clinicians. One of those clinicians introduced me to working with the mind body connection and the very subtle process of using the attunement that arises in therapy, a process of deep yet gentle inquiry. The simplicity of the process exemplifies the saying, “a little is a lot”.  He encouraged  me to take the  Somatic Transformation two year, eight-part training,  that I recently completed. It has changed the ways I work, expanding and deepening the process I began learning years ago. This method has given me amazing results with clients and helped many feel more real and alive with themselves and others. I am humbled to take this journey of self discovery with folks.

I have a LICSW, a state license that documents I have had hundreds of hours of supervision, at least 4000 hours experience and passage of a national  standards of practice exam. I am sought out as a consultant and I regularly consult with and seek out the expertise of fellow clinicians and supervisors, always building my clinical skills and to provide the highest quality services to all my clients.

Membership

I am an active member of the Washington State Clinical Social Workers Association and the Northwest Alliance for Psychoanalytic Study

*object relations, relational, attachment, trauma, and neurobiological research, existential, multi-ethnic, person in environment and strength theories.