I’m a Licensed Marriage Family Therapist (LMFT), Clinical Supervisor, author, yoga instructor, and podcast host. My own experiences with death – my dad’s suicide when I was 21 and my boyfriend’s drug overdose when I was 26 – led me to become a therapist. I understand how overwhelming grief, trauma, and major life changes can feel, and I’m committed to providing compassionate, holistic support that meets you where you are.

I work with individuals, couples, and families navigating significant life changes, relational shifts, or transitions. Much of my work focuses on integration – helping people return to themselves and discover how to incorporate these changes into their lives in ways that feel authentic and grounded. I also support those who have been diagnosed with autism later in life, helping them understand, embrace, and integrate this new aspect of themselves.

My early therapy career included working in-home with families involved with DCS, in prisons and jails within substance abuse programs, and in private practice. I’ve worked with a wide variety of populations and have gained training and experience in many therapeutic models, which allows me to tailor my approach to meet each client’s unique needs.

I make therapy make sense and feel real and relatable. I also blend compassionate evidence-based therapy with mindfulness, somatic practices, and a curiosity for spiritual and holistic approaches to healing. My goal is to help you process your experiences, reclaim resilience, and create a sense of meaning and balance, even amidst life’s most challenging moments.[g]

I have training in and am influenced by the following areas:

• Family Systems Theory
• Narrative Therapy
• Attachment Theory
• Trauma-Informed Care
• Somatic Practices
• Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)
• Post Induction Therapy (PIT)
• Compassionate Bereavement Care (CBC)
• Motivational Interviewing
• Brainspotting
• EMDR
• EMDR RTEP and GTEP protocol
• Flash Technique
• EMDR Fairytale Model
• Compassionate Inquiry
• Internal Family Systems (IFS)
•  Emotionally Focused Therapy
•  Gottman
• Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART)
• Psychedelic Assisted Therapy
• Spiritually Informed Therapy
• Autistic Centered Therapy
• Induced After Death Communication Therapy )IADC)
• Deep Brain Reorienting
• Mindfulness Practices]
• Solution Focused Brief Therapy
• Stress Reduction and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy 
• Transpersonal Psychotherapy 

“Mindfulness” describes a mental state of nonjudgmental attention to and awareness of the present moment — along with calm acknowledgment of feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations as they arise. Mindfulness can also describe a type of meditation practice which cultivates this awareness, a quality all human beings possess.

According to Mindful.org, “mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.”

Mindfulness meditation comes from early Buddhist traditions over 2500 years old, developed to foster

• clear thinking
• compassion
• open-heartedness, and
• the alleviation of suffering

Despite its Buddhist origins, mindfulness meditation requires no special religious or cultural belief system. In fact, Jon-Kabat-Zinn PhD is internationally known for bringing these practices to the West – creating a research-based program called “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction” that has benefited people from all walks of life. This program has been a helpful ancillary form of treatment for many patients with conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, depression, anxiety, psoriasis, and other chronic conditions caused or exacerbated by modifiable lifestyle factors.

As one aim of mindfulness is to take greater responsibility for one’s life choices, it may both strengthen one’s internal resources for optimizing health, and evoke greater engagement with one’s health care too.

Ample research documents effectiveness of mindfulness practices in avoiding relapse in depression, addictions, and also in many forms of anxiety. Studies of its applications in trauma survivors are underway as well. Some forms of psychotherapy which use these practices include Dialectic Behavior Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), and Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention. It is not a panacea, though. Psychiatrists and therapists keep aware of potential pitfalls with certain types of people, conditions, and timing. For instance, actively psychotic patients may worsen with long periods of silence in an extended mindfulness retreat. Once symptoms remit though, the person may be well able to participate and benefit from such programs.

Mindfulness can be taught as part of formal meditation practice, and also as integrated into everyday life situations. It isn’t about changing what you think or feel – but about becoming gradually more aware of these things in a moment-to-moment way. Through mindfulness practice, you can develop a wiser and more compassionate relationship with your own mind and body. This pays dividends not only in how you feel personally, but also in the quality of your relationships with others.

All Optimal You professionals apply some form of mindfulness principles or practice in their work.

Post Induction Therapy is a type of trauma therapy that was created to help people with developmental traumas that comes from abuse and neglect. This style of therapy was developed by Pia Mellody, a leading proponent of issues relating to love addiction and love avoidance, as well as codependency. This specialized therapy helps people find balance in core issues relating to their self-esteem, and personal feelings of shame. It also helps people develop better, long-lasting relationships with others, because they develop better relationships with themselves.

This style of therapy is largely used at The Meadows, which is a well-known treatment facility for issues with intimacy disorders and addictions. This is why it is also often referred to as “The Meadows Model”. This powerful therapeutic works to help clients work through childhood wounds, in a way that avoids becoming overly complex. Clients learn to support themselves in the here and now, rather than get immobilized by past trauma.

Help with Intimacy Issues

Some people struggle with becoming too dependent on others. On the other hand, others struggle with chronically avoiding building genuine connections. Post Induction Therapy (PIT) helps people understand how these struggles came to be.  Clients identify and heal old wounds, in a way that helps them notice their own breaking of boundaries and crossing of their own values system. This helps to enhance both friendships and romantic relationships. Thus, the PIT model also is effective for the most intense of these situations, including love addiction and love avoidance.

Help with Self-Esteem

The most important aspect of developing strong relationships with others is developing a strong relationship with yourself. Identifying areas where lacking self-respect impacts the self, as well as those around you, goes a long way in reaching intimacy goals. Post-Induction makes this more apparent to clients, while also helping them to work through the actual source of the self-esteem problem.

Help with Addictions

Many addictions have trauma at the very core of their energy. Post-Induction Therapy can help people deal with the trauma that is based in childhood relationship traumas. This can include abuse/neglect with parents, as well as abuse from peers. By helping clients to better understand these wounds, and work through them, clients are less likely to fall out of their recovery.

Post Induction Therapy can help with the following:

• Problems finding and maintaining stable relationships.
• Overcoming addiction related trauma.
• Becoming more comfortable dealing with personal emotions.
• Contending with issues of codependency.
• Avoiding intimacy with others.
• Problems with self-esteem and self-worth.

Compassionate Bereavement Care is a mindfulness-based, non-medicalized approach to traumatic grief. The model is a framework based in the art of full presence. ATTEND (attunement, trust, therapeutic touch, egalitarianism, nuance, and death education) is a mindful and evidence-based, culturally sensitive paradigm for compassionate care to the traumatically bereaved which does not pathologize grief. This model has been shown to reduce depressive, anxious, and trauma symptomatology in both clients and clinicians.

These are the guiding principles for Compassionate Bereavement Care certified providers:

1. We believe that traumatic grief presents the most difficult and painful circumstances for individuals, families, communities, and even clinicians;
2. We believe that good clinical care and compassionate communities help create a safe environment in which individuals and families are better able to cope with traumatic loss in their grief journey;
3. We, as providers, commit to building relationships based on civic love and compassion with the individuals and families we help. We agree to adherence to these principals as part of the Certification in Compassionate Bereavement Care®. We will provide personalized care according to each client’s nuanced needs and their own comfort level. We agree to tender, non-coercive counseling and treatment;
4. We support our clients’ participation in healthy, grief-related activities according to their comfort level;
5. We trust our clients/patients know best what their own unique needs are and we do our best to meet them at that place, accommodating them on their terms, not ours;
6. We respect each person’s unique grieving style and engage in mindful, nonjudgmental relationships which do not pathologize their experiences of grief and grief expressions;
7. We do not diagnose or label grief as mental illness;
8. We believe in family strengths and we do our best to use those to benefit our clients and their family systems;
9. As clinicians, we pledge to remember and honor those who have died and stand with our families as they mourn;
10. We care deeply for our clients and engage in activities which reflect such human caring;
11. We believe that self-care and compassion and ongoing education are penultimate to our client’s well-being. Thus, we commit to actively engage in daily self-care and ongoing educational opportunities as providers;
12. We strive to offer uniquely individualized care that creates healing environments for our clients. We are not constricted by rigid guidelines or rules which do not, ultimately, result in best care practices for our families.
13. Guided by the ethics of human compassion we serve, we care, we nurture, we love.

Brainspotting is a powerful, focused treatment method that works by identifying, processing and releasing core neurophysiological sources of emotional/body pain, trauma, dissociation and a variety of other challenging symptoms. Brainspotting is a simultaneous form of diagnosis and treatment, enhanced with Biolateral sound, which is deep, direct, and powerful yet focused and containing.

Brainspotting functions as a neurobiological tool to support the clinical healing relationship. There is no replacement for a mature, nurturing therapeutic presence and the ability to engage another suffering human in a safe and trusting relationship where they feel heard, accepted, and understood.

Brainspotting gives us a tool, within this clinical relationship, to neurobiologically locate, focus, process, and release experiences and symptoms that are typically out of reach of the conscious mind and its cognitive and language capacity.

Brainspotting works with the deep brain and the body through its direct access to the autonomic and limbic systems within the body’s central nervous system. Brainspotting is accordingly a physiological tool/treatment which has profound psychological, emotional, and physical consequences.

Families are complex systems – when one person is struggling, the impact is often felt by everyone. Family therapy provides a supportive space for families to come together, improve communication, and strengthen connection. In sessions, we look at patterns within the family, explore how past experiences and dynamics may be shaping current challenges, and learn new ways of relating that foster understanding and healing.

Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) is a unique approach to therapy. The ART Therapist guides the client to replace the negative images in the mind that cause the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress with positive images of the client’s choosing. And this is done quickly, most often within one session! Once the negative images have been replaced by positive ones, the triggers will be gone. Nightmares and repeated intrusive thoughts will stop.

One of the special aspects of ART is that when clients replace their negative images with positive ones they don’t need to talk to the therapist about any details of the trauma. This is because ART is procedural, though creative; and the client is really in control of the process, while the ART Therapist is a helpful guide. This makes the therapy easier on the client.

Psychedelic experiences can offer profound opportunities for healing and insight, yet they may also feel overwhelming or difficult to integrate. Psychedelic-assisted therapy provides a supportive, structured space for both preparation and integration, helping individuals process their experiences and translate them into meaningful, lasting change.

Support is also available for those engaging in self-administered, low-dose ketamine sessions, ensuring therapeutic guidance throughout the process. This approach is trauma-informed and holistic, drawing on mindfulness and somatic practices to emphasize integration – the process of weaving insights from psychedelic experiences into daily life in ways that foster growth, resilience, and transformation.

For many people, spirituality is an important part of making sense of life’s challenges, losses, and transitions. Spiritually informed therapy creates space in therapy, a place where spirituality is often ignored, to explore how spiritual beliefs, practices, and questions can support the healing process. This approach welcomes clients of all faiths, backgrounds, and traditions, as well as those who identify as spiritual but not religious, or who are simply curious about the role of spirituality in their lives.

Grounded in trauma-informed and holistic practices, spiritually informed therapy helps individuals integrate their inner experiences, reconnect with meaning, and cultivate resilience. It honors the whole person – mind, body, and spirit – while supporting a path toward growth and transformation.

Autistic Centered Therapy is an approach designed to move beyond labels and language, focusing instead on the lived experience of Autistic individuals. Rooted in the neurodiversity movement, this approach emphasizes true understanding, deepened rapport, and meaningful support for Autistic clients and their families.

This model explores the unique ways Autism can shape brain function, relationships, executive function, mood, trauma, and health. With a trauma-informed, affirming lens, Autistic Centered Therapy helps clients explore their identity, strengthen self-advocacy, and integrate their experiences into daily life with authenticity and confidence.

Developed by Dr. Allan Botkin, IADC Therapy is a brief, intensive intervention for grieving clients. As a derivative of EMDR Therapy, it implements vital changes to the standard EMDR protocol to target clients’ sadness associated with their loss. In a majority of cases, clients will experience a perception of connection with their deceased loved-one, resulting in a profoundly healing transformation of their grief.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a cost-effective, non-invasive, evidence-based method of psychotherapy which was originally developed by Francine Shapiro, PhD in the late 1980’s for PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). There have been 24 randomized control studies of EMDR therapy which attest to its value and demonstrate its usefulness across all ages, genders, and cultures. Tens of thousands of clinicians have been trained all over the world in EMDR therapy and studies have supported the use of EMDR with many special populations with an assortment of conditions such as Acute Stress Disorder due to Recent Incident trauma or disasters, personality disorders, eating disorders, anxiety, panic attacks, phobias, performance anxiety, complicated grief, dissociative disorders, addictions,  chronic pain, sexual and/or physical abuse, ADHD, and body dysmorphic disorders, just to name a few.

EMDR has been accepted as an effective form of treatment by several major health organizations including most recently the WHO (World Health Organization). It is listed as an evidenced–based practice by SAMHSA (Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration) and NREPP (National Registry of Evidenced Based Practices and Programs) and the VA/DOD Clinical Practice Guidelines (2004, 2010) recognize EMDR as being a “A” category (the highest level designation) for treatment of trauma.

EMDR is an eight-phase treatment which comprehensively identifies and addresses experiences that have overwhelmed the brain’s natural resilience or coping capacity, and have thereby generated traumatic symptoms and/or harmful coping strategies.

Through EMDR therapy, patients are able to reprocess traumatic information until it is no longer psychologically disruptive. EMDR is a physiologically–based therapy that appears to be similar to what occurs naturally in REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep and seems to have a direct effect on the way our brain processes and stores information.

The Adaptive Information Processing Model is the guiding principle of the EMDR approach and it postulates that health and wellbeing is supported by positive and successful experiences that increasingly prepare a person to handle new challenges and that the brain is equipped to manage and process adversity. Sometimes it just needs a little help. EMDR Therapy utilizes a 3 pronged approach which includes not only a focus on past (contributory) memories, but also focused reprocessing of present situation that continue to be triggering, as well as the development of an adaptive, positive template for the future.

“EMDR therapy shows that the mind can in fact heal from psychological trauma much as the body recovers from physical trauma.  When you cut your hand, your body works to close the wound.  If a foreign object or repeated injury irritates the wound, it festers and causes pain.  Once the block is removed, healing resumes.  EMDR therapy demonstrates that a similar sequence of events occurs with mental processes.  The brain’s information processing system naturally moves toward mental health.  If the system is blocked or imbalanced by the impact of a disturbing event, the emotional wound festers and can cause intense suffering.  Once the block is removed, healing resumes.  Using the detailed protocols and procedures learned in EMDR therapy training sessions, clinicians help clients activate their natural healing processes.”  (Francine Shapiro, EMDR .com)

For more information, go to www.emdr.com, www.EMDRIA.org, www.aztrn.org (Early EMDR Intervention and Disaster response). www.emdrhap.org (International Humanitarian organization)  Shapiro’s describes EMDR therapy in a 1 hour webinar/video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsQbzfW9txc

Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) is a new and novel trauma processing psychotherapeutic approach developed by psychiatrist, Dr. Frank Corrigan, of Glasgow, Scotland.  DBR is found to access and metabolize the more deeply stored shock and core emotional pain, clients most likely experienced during traumatic childhood and other traumatic life events, that remains energetically held in their bodies, inaccessible with most therapies.  It is the trapped shock and emotional pain that continue to block full healing and behavioral change, and many times, can result in converting into chronic pain, somatic symptoms, and auto-immune disorders.

Grounded in neuroscience, DBR theory posits that there is a shock alarm pathway, initiated through the brain stem’s circuitry at the Mid Brain or Superior Collicular level that when triggered, determines how we instinctively respond to either safe or threatening conditions.  With chronic or even severe single incident traumas, this circuitry can get locked into responding to stress or disturbances as if we are under continuous threat of catastrophic harm, either from the environment, other people, or from within us.

This sensitized or locked circuitry can lead to manifestations of acute or chronic anxiety, depression, hypervigilance, sleep disruptions, emotional outbursts, isolation, negative beliefs, and the myriad maladaptive coping strategies known to be used to avoid feeling the deeply stored shock, emotional pain and affects associated with the trauma.

By processing the trauma related shock, emotional pain and associated affects, the Mid Brain circuitry settles, allowing for clients to have different, less intense responses to everyday stressors and disturbances.

The DBR process begins with accessing the sequence of the trauma through the brain stem’s circuitry at the top of the brain stem at the Mid Brain level – the information hub that orients to our surroundings through sight, sound, and sensation, and instinctively responds accordingly to what is best for our survival.

By dropping to this Superior Collicular level of awareness that is below (and before) the brain’s upper level limbic emotional and cortical complex thinking processes’ attempts to respond and  make sense of a trauma, DBR goes to the pre-verbal root of where the trauma first registered in the brain stem – unwinds the sequence of and allows processing of the pre-affective shock, any shock induced dissociation, the trapped emotional pain, such as the pain of aloneness, abandonment, rejection or humiliation experienced during or as a result of the trauma, the related chemical dissociation perhaps blocking access to the deeply stored emotional pain and affects, then finally to the trauma associated affects of fear, rage, grief and shame.

Much of the DBR processing is done in silence, using a recent activating stimulus or disturbance as a portal through the brain stem into the trapped energy sequence, clients are guided to be with and allow the sensations to clear and metabolize.  Intentionally slowing down the trauma sequence allows clients to build a tolerance for accessing and processing through the various elements of trauma with less overwhelm during the DBR process.

Though DBR is not for everyone, DBR has been reported as transformative and less jarring than many trauma therapies. Clients have reported positive shifts in how they see themselves, others, and the world with increases in self-compassion, agency and reductions in trauma-related symptoms and reactions.  For more about DBR, its theory, research, and articles, visit https://deepbrainreorienting.com/#about

Emotionally Focused Therapy is a structured form of couples’ therapy, built alongside the science of attachment and bonding. It helps couples increase connection, rebuild trust, feel supported, and cultivate fulfillment and intimacy in their relationships.

Research regarding the effectiveness of Emotionally Focused Therapy over the last thirty years, demonstrates that EFT is the most empirically valid form of couples’ therapy currently in use by qualified therapists. Importantly, the research also shows that after completing EFT, 90 percent of couples experience improvement in their relationships, no matter how much they previously struggled. Research on the success of EFT demonstrates that couples consistently resolve conflict, recapture love, improve communication, and move from emotional distress to recovery.  EFT is uniquely effective in addressing relationship injuries, including, but certainly not limited to, infidelity. Couples using EFT report feeling more intimate, understood, and valued by their partners. Other common couples therapeutic models that focus on how to communicate better or how to problem solve have been proven less effective than Emotionally Focused Therapy. With EFT, couples get to the root of the problem instead of only treating the symptoms. In session, we will work together in a nonjudgmental, safe space to uncover the vulnerable feelings that lie below the surface and address the real questions that are driving your negative patterns of interactions.

Solution–Focused Brief Therapy is a practical goal–driven model with emphasis on clear, precise, and realistic goal negotiations. This approach assumes that you have some knowledge of what would make your life better even though you may need some help describing the details of your better life.

The foundational belief is that people who seek help already possess the minimal skills necessary to create solutions, but just need some help setting up the small, realistic and doable steps to achieve their desired goals.

As the name suggests, SFBT is future-focused, goal-directed, and focuses on solutions, rather than on the problems that brought clients to seek therapy.

Learn more at solutionfocused.net.

Stress is part of being alive and some of its stimulating effects can be good, but too much of it can have a negative effect on our health. Stress Management and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy will help you learn more effective ways of coping with stress by:

• helping you recognize and evaluate any factors that may be putting you under any unnecessary stress,
• provide you with the stress management skills necessary for you to alter or change the feeling, thoughts, or behaviors that are aggravating or causing your current health problems, and
• will show you, through mindfulness based practices, that you can control physical stress by learning to relax and flow through it.

The various techniques that can be employed in a stress management therapy session include relaxation, biofeedback, cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), and mindfulness–based practices such as guided imagery, deep breathing, muscle stretching, and meditation. Instead of being stuck in flight, flight, or freeze, you learn how to flow.

See more at www.goodtherapy.org/mindfulness-based-approaches-contemplative-approaches.html.

Transpersonal psychotherapy is concerned with the study of humanity’s highest potential, and with the recognition, understanding, and realization of unitive, spiritual, and transcendent states of consciousness (Lajoie and Shapiro, 1992).

The goal of transpersonal psychotherapy goes beyond healing trauma to the awakening and attainment of our highest potential. The tenets, philosophies, and practices of the world’s spiritual and wisdom traditions are integrated with Western science, philosophy, and theory to create a full-spectrum psychospiritual developmental model. This model takes us from birth and normal Western developmental phases, to the awakening of spiritual consciousness and the awareness of our interconnection to all living things through a shared energy field, as depicted in Eastern and Native spiritual traditions (Siegel, 2018).

Going beyond conventional psychology’s continuum of maladaptive to adaptive emotions and behaviors, transpersonal psychotherapy recognizes an expanded view of human wholeness, transformation and inter-connectedness via the development of higher levels of spiritual consciousness.  As consciousness shifts, the context of one’s experience shifts, insights become more profound and transformative healing occurs.  Clients transcend their egoic or personal perspectives, seeing events from an expanded state of awareness, often with new solutions and elevated understanding.

Through the use of attunement to each client’s needs, resonance with higher levels of consciousness, guided imagery, various mindfulness practices, breathwork, and tools from ancient spiritual traditions, transpersonal therapists guide clients to their own inner wisdom, facilitating shifts in consciousness, understanding, well-being and ultimately to living their fullest potential.

Compassionate Inquiry® is a psychotherapeutic approach developed by Dr. Gabor Maté that reveals what lies beneath the appearance we present to the world.

Using Compassionate Inquiry, both the individual and therapist unveil the level of consciousness, mental climate, hidden assumptions, implicit memories and body states that form the real message that words both express and conceal.

Through Compassionate Inquiry, the client can recognize the unconscious dynamics that run their lives and how to liberate themselves from them.

“The purpose of Compassionate Inquiry is to drill down to the core stories people tell themselves – to get them to see what story they are telling themselves unconsciously; what those beliefs are, where they came from; and guide them to the possibility of letting go of those stories, or letting go of the hold those stories have on them …

That’s what Compassionate Inquiry is.

~ Dr. Gabor Maté