Expert in Emotion Regulation and Trauma
​Emotion dysregulation may take different forms. Symptoms of under-control may be seen in sudden, extreme shifts in emotion, impulsive (often risky) behavior, an unstable sense of self, or difficulty maintaining healthy relationships. Dyscontrol-related disorders vary widely and include forms of mood, addiction, eating, impulse-control, and personality disorders.
Over-control is often observed in emotional supression, excessive self-criticism, compulsive fixing or planning, frequent rumination, isolative behavior, rigid thinking, repetative behavior, or fear of judgement. Over-control-related disorders also span diagnostic categories and include anxiety, obsessive-compulsive, eating, and personality disorders.
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I provide clients skills to manage overwhelming emotions so they can change the ineffective and inflexible behaviors that block their progress. By experimenting with new self-regulation strategies, clients establish the intrapersonal balance required to achieve interpersonal goals. ​
Trauma often presents as an unpredictable oscillation between extremes of under-control and over-control. Over-control appears between moments of crisis as people strain to suppress the past. Under-control appears when exhaustive efforts to push away the past inevitably fail and historic traumas are re-lived in the present.​ I help clients to step into and out of distress so they may learn to live with the past without re--experiencing it in the present.
Individual Therapy
Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT)
DBT is an evidence-based treatment for individuals who struggle with emotion dysregulation, impulsive/risky behaviors, unstable sense of self, and difficulties establishing and maintaining healthy relationships. The treatment includes three elements. In a weekly group session, clients are taught new skills to cultivate mindfulness, tolerate distress, regulate emotions, and manage relationships. In weekly individual sessions, the therapist helps the client apply skills to work toward individual treatment goals. When indicated, the treatment also includes between sessions phone coaching to help the individual experiment with new behaviors when they are most needed.
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Radically open dialectical behavioral therapy (RO DBT)
RO DBT is a designed to help individuals who avoid distress by over-relying on efforts to control their experience. Overcontrolled coping may appear as high self-criticism, compulsive fixing or planning, rumination, social isolation, emotional suppression, rigidity in thinking and behavior, and fear of negative evaluation, amongst others. RO DBT focuses on helping overcontrolled individuals develop more openness, receptivity, spontaneity, flexibility, and connectedness with others. RO-DBT includes both weekly group-based skills training and individual therapy.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
CBT is a specific treatment, however, the term is also commonly used to refer to a wide array of manualized treatments. This wider collection of cognitive behavioral therapies (CBTs) have been rigorously tested in clinical trials and found to be effective in connection with many disorders, including:
Depressive Disorders
Anxiety Disorders
Obsessive-compulsive and Related Disorders
Trauma- And Stressor-Related Disorders (e.g., PTSD)
Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders
Eating Disorders
Sleep-Wake Disorders (e.g., insomnia)
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
Each treatment protocol leverages specific principles of change designed to target a disorder’s symptoms. As a group, CBTs share one unifying principle -- that thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are inter-related. CBTs are present focused, goal-oriented, structured treatments that begin by helping people identify unhelpful patterns of thought and behavior. Therapists then teach clients new skills so that they may change beliefs and behaviors that maintain distress over time.
CBTs may be delivered in individual or group formats.
Couples Therapy
Emotionally focused therapy (EFT) for couples
EFT is an evidence-based treatment that draws from attachment theory to help individuals and couples form strong emotional bonds and establish secure connection with self and others. It has been proven to be effective in treating a wide range of issues from relationship distress to individual trauma and anxiety.
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DBT for High Conflict Couples
DBT is an evidence-based treatment for individuals and couples who struggle with emotion dysregulation, impulsive/risky behaviors, unstable sense of self, and difficulties establishing and maintaining healthy relationships. In treating couples, DBT focuses on helping couples become mindful of their interaction patterns, learn the skills to de-escalate during conflicts, become effective with communication, and build more fulfilling relationships. By integrating strategies of acceptance and change, DBT helps couples become more validating toward each other.
Family Therapy
DBT for Children, Adolescents, and Families
DBT is an evidence-based treatment for children, adolescents, and families who struggle with emotion dysregulation, impulsive/risky behaviors, unstable sense of self, and difficulties establishing and maintaining healthy relationships. In treating children, adolescents, and families, DBT focuses on helping the individuals and the parent/family system they exist within to help them more effectively learn skills to self-manage while flexibly responding to the needs of others in order to reduce conflicts/problematic behaviors and to increase connection in relationships.
Group Therapy
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DBT Skills Group: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness skills.
RO DBT Skills Group: skills that lead to more openness and social connectedness.
Consultation Servies
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I offer consultation services to clinicians who practice DBT.
