I experienced a lot of trauma in my childhood, from the death of my mother around my 12th birthday to my father changing from a loving to an abusive person.  I developed relational and emotional coping mechanisms as a way of surviving this change.  While these strategies helped me early on, the strategies later became destructive in my close relationships, especially my marriage. 

Through my own journey of therapy, I have done a lot of trauma work.  I have done EMDR therapy to desensitize the experiences of abuse from my father and to reprocess the faulty core beliefs I had developed.  Through my own therapy, I have begun the journey of moving from simply surviving to thriving.  It is through my personal story that I have developed the passion to help my clients also move from simply surviving to thriving.

I know what it is like to experience the pain associated with feeling unheard, unseen, and invalidated.  I also know what it is like to have a counselor see, hear, and validate me.  Therefore, it is my priority to see, hear, and validate my clients.  I believe that if my clients feel seen, heard, and validated, they will be more likely to find the motivation to make the changes they desire to make.