how i work
The psyche moves in spirals, not straight lines.
My approach is relational, experiential, and depth-oriented. These frameworks guide my work but they do not confine it
I trust the intelligence of our human system. Our symptoms often carry meaning. Our defences once made sense. What looks like resistance is usually protection. And protection deserves appreciation and curiosity, not confrontation.
In our work together, I attend to what is happening beneath the surface - the emotional currents, the attachment longings, the subtle ways your body signals safety or threat. Insight matters, but integration matters more. Change that lasts is change that is embodied.
My role is not to lead you somewhere foreign. It is to help you feel steady enough to explore what is already within you.
What I believe about how people change
What actually happens in a session
Sessions are sixty minutes, held in person at my office in Nanaimo or online via secure video. I work at a pace that's right for you. Some sessions move slowly and carefully, sitting with something that needs time. Others move quickly, making connections that have been waiting to be made.
I'm an active therapist. I'll interrupt when we're spinning, redirect when we're stuck, and hold us still when we touch something true enough to sit with. I track the energy in the room - what's being said, what isn't, what your body is doing while you talk.
Sometimes we laugh. Therapy doesn't have to be solemn to be real. All of you is welcome here - the careful parts and the messy ones, the parts that have it all together and the parts that don't.
Frameworks I Draw From
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
One of the most researched approaches to couples work. Helps partners understand the emotional patterns driving conflict and build more secure attachment.
The Developmental Model
A framework for understanding where a relationship is in its growth and what it needs at each stage. Especially good at supporting differentiation and clarifying goals.
Sex Therapy
Integrated, shame-free, and tailored to you. A safe place to explore desire, intimacy, and connection - whatever that means for you and your relationship.
Attachment Theory & Repair
Understanding how your early experiences of closeness and safety shape how you show up in relationships now - and how those patterns can shift.
Somatic Awareness & Parts Work
Attending to what the body knows, and to the different parts of you that sometimes seem to what different things. Change that is felt, not just understood.
Psychedelic Integration
For those who have had or are considering psychedelic experiences, I offer integration support - making meaning of what emerged and weaving it into everyday life.
My background in clinical hypnotherapy - rooted in a Gestalt framework - informs how I attend to the unconscious: the imagery, the metaphor, the deeper current running beneath what's being said.
1801 Bowen Road, Unit 101, Nanaimo, BC