Psychoanalytic

This approach explore how the unconscious mind influences your thoughts, behaviors and feelings. I believe Anxiety and depressive symptoms are manifestations of deeper challenges that we will uncover together.

Let me help you untangle some of what is going through your mind, and help you find hidden meanings and thought patterns to your awareness and reframe them.

By "psychoanalytic therapy," I mean that my work is influenced by Contemporary Relational Psychoanalysis. Unfortunately, psychoanalysis has picked up somewhat of a negative reputation along the way! While I agree that many psychoanalytic concepts feel dated and don't speak to many of us, there are also many valuable ideas that are very helpful. For example, psychoanalysis has great respect for the idea that our past has an impact on our present and on our future, even though we may not remember the exact details. It also gives us tools for thinking about how our minds take in information and how we make use of it.

I am trained in Modern Analysis. I will help you put words to your thoughts, feelings and urges.

I have a Master's Degree in Counseling Psychology with an Emphasis in Depth Psychology, with many advanced trainings in Jungian Therapy, known also as Analytical Psychology or Depth Psychology. These include Certification in Jungian Studies, and ongoing Sandplay Training from the C. G. Jung Institute. I attend weekly educational seminars in psychoanalytic counseling with Jungian Analysts in the international and local communities.

I approach therapy through a Contemporary Psychoanalytic Lens to understand what is being communicated through one's behaviors and understand how past experiences influence current relationships. As we form a relationship, I have found individuals develop stronger insight, aiding with a deeper understanding of self, and experiencing more lasting and sustainable relief.

We approach therapy through a contemporary psychoanalytic lens to understand what is being communicated through one's behaviors and understand how past experiences are influencing current relationships. As we form our relationships we have found that individuals develop deeper insight, aiding with a deeper understanding of themselves, and experiencing more lasting and sustainable relief.

Carefully listening to the conflicts and desires hidden within your story, through which we can establish new ways for you to live and thrive.

My style is warm & authentic. I take a non-directive stance, meaning that it’s important for me to allow enough space for different aspects of your internal experience to emerge. I will share my thoughts with you, especially when something feels important, but I won’t tell you what you should or shouldn’t do. Our sessions will instead open up a reflective space where we have the freedom & spontaneity to play with different perspectives & think together in ways that feel generative.

I have a PsyD degree and am a licensed psychoanalyst.

After graduate school, I completed two years of advanced clinical training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy with the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis in 2015. Prior to that, I participated in the fellowship program with the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute (2010-2011) and the fellowship program with the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis (2011-2013).

Informed by psychoanalytic theory, I help clients come to understand what unconscious processes drive their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. If you find that you keep repeating the same unwanted behaviors or feel stuck in patterns of relating to yourself and others, this modality might be right for you!

Why psychodynamic/analytic therapy? The here and now psychotherapy relationship opens a stunning window into past, present, and future; into the deep wisdom of the unconscious; and into a creative flexibility that brings more and more wholesomeness, freedom, intimacy, and flourishing of the soul. I have doctoral and postdoctoral training in various contemporary analytic approaches, and I practice from a liberatory, feminist, relational stance.

Psychoanalytic therapy focuses on understanding your are formed by both your past, and your unconscious processes. This type of therapy puts the patient at the center, and focuses on empathic atunement and listening. Through understanding who we are and how we got here, we can better understand the issues that plague us in our everyday lives. And we can learn to mourn the losses of the past and move forward, choosing a better future.

Under this umbrella falls many theories and approaches such as : object relations and modern psychoanalysis. Object relations is in a nutshell you relate to others including partners how your caregiver related to you. We all strive for perfection but it is really about being "good enough". Modern psychoanalysis is focusing on protecting from self attacks and self-sabotage. (cue Bestie Boys music). The therapist job is to have the client "say everything."