I am a white, cis woman of European descent living on Nipmuc and Agawam land in central Massachusetts. My formal education includes receiving a dual degree in philosophy and psychology from my undergraduate program at Stonehill College. After college, I did a year of volunteer service at a homeless shelter in Durham, NC. I later pursued my masters degree in social work at Smith College School for Social Work. After graduate school, I completed a two year, advanced social work fellowship at the Danielsen Institute at Boston University.

During that fellowship, I focused on the intersections of psychotherapy, social justice, and spiritual and existential questions in therapy.

At the end of 2020, I opened my private practice. 

 

For the past few years, I have engaged in a comprehensive training in Hakomi Mindfulness Based Somatic Psychotherapy. I have enjoyed the process of learning how to listen to the wisdom of the body and begin to balance the more “heady” forms of psychotherapy that I learned in graduate school. As someone who learned to rely on my intellect in my adolescence and young adulthood, I know how hard it can be when a therapist asks, "Where do you feel that in your body?" I enjoy supporting clients in the process of re-learning how to connect with and begin to interpret and understand the signals our bodies give about our needs, desires, and experiences.

 

Learning somatic practices also seems particularly important as we live through ongoing, concurrent crises. We are all witnessing and experiencing the violence and destruction that is living within systems of colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, white supremacy, and heteropatriarchy. Connecting with our bodies and our present moment experience is one of the most tangible tools I have found to resist the numbness, fear, helplessness, and despair that these ongoing crises evoke. I consider therapy to be an avenue for resistance against systems of oppression when I can support clients in both acknowledging the impact of systems of oppression in their lives and developing tools for survival and joy in the midst of global crisis. 

 

I practice liberation psychology to support queer, trans, disabled, BIPOC, and neurodivergent clients and trauma survivors. I prioritize learning from people with lived experiences to better support my clients who hold identities that I don't share. 

 

Visit the “My Bookshelf” page to see more of who I’m reading and learning from right now.