I have extensive experience working with survivors of sexual assault, and physical and emotional abuse, as well as working with individuals who have faced their own, or a loved one’s, medical diagnosis or chronic illness. When painful emotions around such experiences go unaddressed they often find other, sometimes harmful, ways of making themselves known. Together we’ll sit in the discomfort of the emotions, and give them the space they’re deserving of and asking for. Telling your story can offer you the chance to regain, or perhaps gain for the first time, a sense of agency and self-understanding.
Our culture tends only to recognize death as a loss warranting grief, my understanding of grief is far more encompassing: grief is the emotional response to loss of any kind. This might mean the loss of a loved one, a relationship, a home, your health, or your identity. These experiences with loss change you, and can result in feelings of disconnectedness, confusion, and going through the motions. In our work together, we will make space for the varying, sometimes conflicting, emotions that define your individual grief experience. We will grieve who, or what, has been lost, and become acquainted with this new version of yourself that now exists.
Worry and despair can be incredibly isolating. You deserve to not experience that alone. Through consistent, compassionate and empathic support, we’ll work to understand your lived experience to learn how to best nurture what brings a greater sense of balance to your life. I frequently collaborate with other mental health and medical professionals to offer holistic care that treats you as a whole person, and not a diagnosis.