The process of therapy can help people make room for new ways of being - with themselves, with others, at work, in creative life. It can also help people mourn losses and nourish their capacities of resilience and resistance to traumas and shocks. Through therapy, people can learn to contain and metabolize anxiety and depressive phenomena so that they have more space to act with reflective mindfulness. 

 

My approach is based in psychoanalytic therapy, with an attention to trauma and attachment. I trained as a therapist at Smith College School for Social Work and graduated with a Masters in Clinical Social Work in 2018. Before moving to Paris I worked with children, adolescents, adults and couples in San Francisco, California. My education in social work helps me attend to dynamics of power and oppression in people’s emotional and material lives - in particular around race, sexuality, gender, class and ability. Before becoming a therapist, I got a PhD in English with a Certificate in Gender and Sexuality Studies at Princeton University. The training I received to read with thoughtfulness and care has become part of my method as a therapist.

 

My style tends to combine patient, careful attention with humor and frankness. I have an affinity for people who require time and patience to begin to speak their experience as well as children who have suffered traumatic losses and painful transitions. Many of the people I have worked with experienced various forms of neglect and abuse as children and were left feeling disconnected, empty and unsure of who they are as adults. Some may have poured themselves into their professional lives, but feel great difficulty knowing themselves and connecting to others in friendship and intimacy. Others may feel stuck at school or work, feeling as if their potential is being wasted in negative cycles of anxiety, procrastination, and guilt.

 

I have worked with people to understand and reduce social anxiety, to work through experiences of immigration and dislocation, to set better boundaries, to understand and manage negative cycles of procrastination, guilt and anxiety at work or school, to reduce their use of alcohol and other substances, and to be able to connect to, nurture and express their authentic selves. I work well with artists, activists, and writers as well as people who are part of minority communities, including people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and immigrants.