Sexual Abuse Therapists in Westlake, Seattle, WA

If you are browsing through this website then you're most likely trying to find help with something in your life that you've been struggling with for for years. Maybe it's depression or anxiety and you need help trying to manage it, someone to hold it with you. Perhaps you have a hard time staying in a relationship for any length of time? Or maybe you're holding onto the secret of sexual abuse as a child or teen and have never told anyone. Sometimes things shatter and we don't know why, but it does. Life shatters us. I would love the privilege of walking with you. We can do it together. You don't have to do it alone anymore.

I am a licensed clinical psychologist who is focused on helping adults who are experiencing distress in their lives. My areas of specialty include, but are not limited to, trauma, Posttraumatic Stress, depression, anxiety, and dissociation. I emphasize an individual's strengths and work to help people feel empowered in their daily lives. I use a variety of tools to do this, including EMDR, DBT, and other evidence based practices.

Accepting New Clients! Where have you come from, where are you now and where is it that you wish to go? I believe that each of our lives is an intricate interplay of many stories. We all have a unique and beautiful story to live and share, yet our story is not simply our own. We each exist and are formed by the interplay of our own stories, the stories of those who have helped us and harmed us, our stories of trauma, cultural stories, familial stories, and so on. Let's work together to discover the character you are in your life's story, what has shaped that character and empower the character you wish to be.

It takes courage and strength to initiate and engage in therapeutic work. I respect and honor those seeking help and feel privileged for my role in their process. I work with adults to help relieve symptoms of anxiety and depression, improve their quality of relationships, heal past trauma and a variety of other human concerns. I have particular experience working with individuals who have experienced complex trauma. I help clients to become aware of beliefs, patterns, and behaviors that may be preventing them from living as fully as possible and help illuminate their range of possibilities.

Welcome, thank you for taking a moment to visit. You probably browsed through a number of profiles already; looking for a therapist online is not an easy task especially under stress. In brief, therapy is not a one-size-fits-all solution, I tailor my therapeutic approach to meet your needs and together we can sort things out and come up with a plan of action. Let's create some tools for you to relieve the stress and address the core issues.

During our work together, we will be doing just that - working together! In our sessions I'll help you to identify what you (and your partner, if couples therapy) would like to see improved and how you visualize yourself, your relationship, and really your life by the end of therapy. From there I help you to recognize patterns, beliefs, and behaviors that may be keeping you stuck. My approach to helping you in this process is through a ‘person-centered’ therapeutic lens, as I trust that you are the expert in your life and that I am here to help you to understand your potential for positive change and to help facilitate that change.

**Current Openings** During this unusual time we are all in, I invite you to come and risk finding a different, more connected way of living. Together we will spend time looking at the specific issues that brought you into therapy, as well as explore the nature of your relationships with important people in your life. We will consider together how your way of relating with yourself and others impacts your life and the relationships around you. I believe that we are all looking for our true selves--who we are at our deepest, most profound "self"--and I look forward to beginning that journey with you.

As a relationship and sex therapist, my background and training are in relationship treatment as well as sexuality therapy. I work with heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, asexual, and transgender individuals, couples, and partnerships to heal and find fulfillment. I see adults on a variety of discomforts that affect individuals, partnerships, and sexuality (e.g., orgasmic issues, erectile issues, desire issues, sexual pain). Additionally, I see couples for a myriad of relational issues. I am LGBTIQA, kink, and poly friendly and knowledgeable.

Does your life look good on paper, but you still feel sad and lonely? Are you finding it harder to enjoy things that used to bring you hapiness and fulfillment? Work is "fine," but you feel a lack of motivation that you once had. Do you find yourself forcing a smile on your face, even though inside you feel sad and maybe even a little guilty for not enjoying your life? There's a reason for all this sadness and together we can figure out what's really going on so that you don't have to feel this way anymore.

We are all alive and trying to learn something about living; we live the way that we feel. We do this automatically (and whether we know it or not) in relationship: in relating to our self and to others. Therefore, my philosophy is everything is emotional and relational and mindful; everything matters.

I am here to help people get out of their emotional ruts and into healing. Teens and adults struggling with school, jobs, and/or relationships are my specialty. My job is to help alleviate some of your suffering and present tools that you can use to find more satisfaction in life. This therapy is designed to get where you want to be fast.

In my work with clients, I use a combination of warmth, curiosity, directness, and respectful humor. I adamantly believe in the individual's right to self-determination, and I take a collaborative approach to therapy - I see you as the only person who can truly know what is important to you and what works in your life, and I see myself as someone who can help you understand what is contributing to your challenges, clarify your thoughts and feelings, help you learn strategies for thinking and behaving differently, and support you as you move toward the life you want.

I have a passion for working with people experiencing life transitions, including divorce or loss, forming new step families, co-parenting, or struggling with parenting concerns. My approach is to explore problems systemically, viewing each client within the context of the world around them. In therapy sessions we will explore trans-generational patterns of behavior that exist within you, and within your family of origin and your family of choice.

Therapy is a partnership that grows in an atmosphere of safety and acceptance. It allows us to rediscover the parts of ourselves we had to disown as children in order to keep our caregivers close; to learn new skills to handle grief and distress; to build healthier, more nurturing relationships; and to gain access to our own direct experience of the world, perhaps for the first time. I nurture this collaboration with clients by recognizing that each individual possesses the wisdom he or she needs, as well as the innate capacity to love, to connect, and to thrive.

Do you find it challenging to show up for yourself? Are you making decisions that aren’t aligned with the way you want to live your life? Do you struggle with boundaries in your relationships? Are there things from your past that are impacting your life now? I’m passionate about helping my clients develop a grounded and secure sense of self so that they can build a meaningful and fulfilling life. The majority of my practice focuses on helping clients’ relationship with themselves and relationships with others. I often work with those who are feeling lost, stuck, depressed, and anxious.