Question 1

Approach

Accepted Answer

My approach starts with a simple belief: therapy is not about fixing you. It is a place to slow down, speak honestly, and pay attention to what usually gets pushed aside. Together, we explore agency, desire, conflict, imagination, and the personal, familial, cultural, and inherited stories that shape a life.I work with adults, couples, and families navigating identity change, trauma, illness, caregiving, burnout, estrangement, and the effects of controlling relationships, families, communities, or systems. These experiences can shape not only what has happened to you, but how you understand yourself, your body, your relationships, and your sense of what is possible.I’m especially interested in how people become who they are, and perhaps even more in who they become after disruption or major life change. Illness, loss, migration, trauma, and caregiving can unsettle a person’s sense of self. Therapy can offer a place to understand what has changed, what has endured, and what may still be taking shape.My work is depth-oriented, direct, somatic, and expressive. I draw from psychodynamic therapy, trauma treatment, and narrative therapy, but I do not work from a rigid script or use the same approach with everyone. I use these perspectives flexibly, with attention to meaning, embodiment, relationship, discernment, and agency.I pay close attention to the relationships, family histories, cultural experiences, and roles that have shaped a person over time. I’m also interested in the ways people adapt to survive, protect themselves, care for others, and find belonging, as well as what those adaptations may eventually come to cost them.My practice is LGBTQIA+ affirming. My style is warm, thoughtful, and direct, with room for humor, play, challenge, and imagination. We can begin with a consultation, get to know one another, and see whether working together feels like a good fit.

Question 2

Experience

Accepted Answer

My work mainly aligns with psychodynamic thinking, with attention to the body, relationships, family history, culture, and the unconscious patterns that shape how people survive, adapt, love, defend, and change. I work with individuals, couples, and families navigating complex trauma, identity shifts, family rupture and repair, coercive or high-control relationships and systems, illness, caregiving, grief, and periods of transition or disconnection.I have advanced training in EMDR, somatic therapy, and relational approaches, and I draw from evidence-informed modalities such as ERP, Prolonged Exposure, and ACT when they are useful. At the same time, I don't approach therapy as a protocol to apply. I use these models flexibly, within a deeper process of understanding meaning, conflict, desire, defense, embodiment, and relationship.Over the past decade, I’ve directed mental health programming and currently serve as Director of a PTSD and trauma-preventive community mental health program for Ukrainian refugees of war. I have contributed to clinical research on mood and personality disorders with CUNY and Mount Sinai, and trained through the Ackerman Institute’s FEAT program to support LGBTQ+ youth and their families. I’ve also worked extensively in perinatal mental health as a doula, educator, and co-authored Postpartum Support International’s section on queer perinatal family-building and support needs.My own experience as a refugee and third-culture kid shapes the way I listen. It has made me especially attentive to displacement, identity, belonging, and the pressure to adapt without losing important parts of yourself.

Question 3

Outside of Work

Accepted Answer

Outside of sessions, I ground myself through meditation, somatic practices, art making, storytelling, and community engaged activities. I’m drawn to both quiet, inward spaces and expansive, exploratory ones, needing depth as much as discovery. Music, writing, photography, focused learning, organizing, volunteering, and wandering all have a place in how I recharge.I’m the kind of person who can geek out about the weeds cracking through city sidewalks as easily as I can get lost in a forest trail. I bring that same mix of curiosity and grit into my work. Play, humor, and creative expression aren’t side notes for me, they are often where connection and movement begin. I move through the world with intention, irreverence, and a love of art, wanderlust, and sacred encounters, the kinds of found places and found people that only appear when you’re willing to get a little lost, inside and out.

Serving NY & NJ

Serving NY & NJ

Learn About Me

Approach

Experience

Outside of Work

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