Washington State Licensed Therapist:  Number LH-00011190

Addiction and Relapse Prevention: Do you feel drug, alcohol or food use is getting in the way of the things you want to do with your life? Do you find yourself using more often and in greater quanity than you intended?   Does your substance use cause as much anxiety and depression as you had hoped it could relieve?  Millions have broken the bonds of addiction to drugs and harmful behavior. There is no reason you can't join them. I have clinical experience assisting those with Internet, sex and relationship addiction as well. 

Couples and Family:  Are you feeling you need more from your relationship? Do you find you are often fighting about small things? What happened to the feelings you had for each other when you first met? Well, this is just where couple’s therapy starts, clarifying what was first very right about your relationship. Often, what is right about our relationships can heal what has gone wrong.   

For couples who have been married a while, counseling is often about respecting the changes taking place and clarifying your new needs and goals. Exploring these new needs and establishing shared goals can then become a joint venture with your partner.

Creativity: The loss of our ability to create, our ability to open our minds to new possibilities, is one cause of anxiety and depression. Creativity can bring the fulfillment and energy a lot of depressed and anxious undiscovered artists are looking for.

Foster Care and Adoption: I have extensive experience working with children transitioning into foster care or blended family environments. I have worked with clients from all age demographics, with a recent emphasis and experience working with seniors. 

Mindfullness: Meditation practices have been extremely helpful in allowing practitioners to tolerate distressful, anxious and intrusive thoughts and feelings. Recent medical and clinical studies have shown it to be extremely helpful in treating anxiety and depression. Mindfulness can be defined as the intentional accepting and non-judgmental focus of one’s attentions on the rising of emotion and thoughts in the present moment.  With practice, practitioners can watch how thoughts and fears arise in the brain, how they trigger certain feelings (fear, elation, tiredness, depression).  With practice, we observe how we super charge our thoughts; how these enhanced thoughts then attempt to create their own reality, create their own peculiar form of anxiety.  As a result, we often develop an unreasonable, anxious fear or an anxiety-driven preoccupation with future events…events that are often either most likely not going to happen.  Unrealistic and fearful thoughts often take us out of our present experience, out of what is happening now. A present orientation of mindfulness has the ability to focus and center us with its natural curiosity, its openness and subsequent acceptance of difficult moments.  Eventually, mindfulness practice offers us the opportunity to accept our fears and accept ourselves. This present focus can assist the maintenance of a calm mind, an open mind, a flexible mind. An anxious mind spins quickly from one past regret to the other, often then stopping at the prediction of another future calamity.  Mindfulness centers us in the moment, in the present where new things, new growth, spontaneous experiences can unfold.  Once we have allowed this place where imagined fears are not in charge, grief, regret and sadness can take its natural and healing course....and not keep us stuck. 

 Family of Origin: I believe our life patterns, both productive and destructive, are developed in our early family interactions. While we physically leave home at a certain age, we often take our unresolved struggles with us. Because we have been facing them so long and boldly surviving, these struggles are often the hardest ones for us to see. These patterns are often the obstacles that keep us from changing. Childhood molds the expectations of life that cause us the  most stress, Exploring who we were, what was expected of us, and how we responded to the challenges of our first families can help us see how we became who we are today.  This understanding can assist us in examining the roles we have taken, as well as find the beneficial hidden parts  of ourselves that we have left behind.   

I believe we are all seeking, in our sometimes chaotic, haphazard ways, balance, safety and companionship.  As we create loving relationships, so these relationships change us.   As our connections to our family and friends become strong, so can we. When we as individuals become stronger and more centered in ourselves, we become more connected to our family and friends.

 In Conclusion: I have extensive training and experience working with families and individuals whose experiences and culture are different from mine. Our differences, our different cultures, backgrounds and experiences, can be the foundation of our connection. I hope to learn and grow from our interactions as well.