Integrative Trauma-Informed Therapy

A relational, somatic approach to psychotherapy

My approach to therapy is integrative, which means I draw from different therapeutic modalities depending on your needs, history, goals, and what emerges in our work together.

Rather than focusing only on thoughts or symptoms, we may also pay attention to emotions, relationships, patterns of protection, body sensations, creativity, and the nervous system. The intention is not to follow a predetermined formula, but to create a therapeutic process that responds to you as a whole person.

I believe healing can involve both practical change and deeper exploration. Sometimes we may focus on what is happening in your life right now; at other times, we may become curious about patterns, emotions, relationships, memories, body experiences, dreams, symbols, or parts of yourself that are asking for attention.

A Collaborative Process

I see therapy as a collaborative process. You bring your lived experience, values, wisdom, curiosity, and knowledge of yourself. I bring my clinical training, experience, compassion, curiosity, and perspective.

Together, we explore what feels most supportive and meaningful for you. Rather than applying techniques automatically, I draw from different approaches according to your needs, goals, and what emerges in our work.

Consent, respect, and cultural humility are central to this process. I invite rather than impose, and we can continually pay attention to what feels supportive, what does not, and how the therapeutic process can best honor your boundaries, identities, values, and lived experience

Therapeutic Approaches I May Integrate

Depending on your needs and treatment goals, our work may draw from several therapeutic approaches. Not every modality is used with every client, and we can discuss together what feels appropriate for your therapeutic process.

Relational Therapy

Healing happens within relationship. Our experiences with family, attachment, culture, belonging, intimacy, trust, and connection can influence how we relate to ourselves and to others.

Relational therapy pays attention not only to what has happened in your life, but also to the patterns that emerge in relationships—including, when useful, what happens between us in the therapeutic relationship.

Together, we may explore patterns around trust, boundaries, vulnerability, protection, communication, closeness, and disconnection with curiosity and compassion.

Somatic Therapy

Our experiences can show up not only through thoughts and emotions, but also through body sensations, tension, movement, impulses, patterns of protection, and changes in the nervous system.

Somatic therapy brings gentle attention to these experiences alongside conversation. We may explore sensations, breathing, movement, boundaries, or shifts in activation while developing greater awareness of how your body responds to stress, connection, and safety.

The work is paced collaboratively, with an emphasis on curiosity rather than forcing a particular response.

EMDR Therapy

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a structured psychotherapy approach commonly used in the treatment of trauma and distressing life experiences.

EMDR can provide a way of working with memories, emotions, beliefs, and body responses that continue to feel activated in the present. The process is collaborative and paced according to your individual needs, with attention to preparation and resources before moving into trauma processing.

I may integrate EMDR with relational, somatic, expressive, and parts-oriented approaches depending on what is appropriate for you.

Parts Work

We all have different aspects or “parts” of ourselves that may carry particular emotions, beliefs, needs, memories, or ways of protecting us.

Parts work offers a compassionate way of becoming curious about these different internal experiences rather than judging or trying to eliminate them. We may explore how particular parts developed, what they are trying to protect, and what they may need in the present.

I integrate parts-oriented approaches within the broader therapeutic process when they are useful.

Expressive Arts Therapy

Not every experience is easily expressed through words. Images, symbols, movement, dreams, metaphor, and creative expression can offer additional ways of exploring our inner world.

Depending on your interests and needs, we may incorporate drawing, collage, body mapping, movement, sand tray, imagery, writing, or other forms of creative exploration.

No artistic experience is necessary. The focus is on the process of exploration rather than artistic skill or creating a finished product.

Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST)

TIST is a parts-oriented and trauma-informed approach that can be especially useful when experiences from the past continue to affect emotions, relationships, beliefs, or patterns of protection in the present.

The approach incorporates an understanding of trauma, attachment, the nervous system, and internal parts while emphasizing stabilization, curiosity, and compassion.

When appropriate, I may integrate elements of TIST with somatic, relational, expressive, and EMDR work.

Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy & Psychedelic Integration

For appropriate clients, psychedelic-assisted approaches may offer a different way of engaging with emotions, body sensations, patterns, imagery, and experiences within psychotherapy.

My work includes Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP), psychedelic preparation and integration, and psychedelic-informed somatic approaches.

When ketamine is part of treatment, I provide the psychotherapy component—including preparation, therapeutic support, and integration—while an independent licensed medical provider is responsible for medical screening, determining eligibility, prescribing, medication instructions, and medical management.

I do not prescribe or dispense ketamine.

Psychedelic Somatic Interactional Psychotherapy (PSIP)

My psychedelic-informed work is also influenced by training in Psychedelic Somatic Interactional Psychotherapy (PSIP), an approach that brings attention to the relationship between the nervous system, trauma responses, relational experience, and non-ordinary states of consciousness.

Elements of this approach may inform how I work with somatic experience, protective patterns, relational dynamics, and psychedelic preparation and integration.

The way this work is incorporated depends on the individual client, treatment context, and what is clinically appropriate.

Meaning, Symbol, Dreams & Spirituality

For clients who are interested, therapy may also make space for dreams, symbols, spirituality, ancestry, ritual, creativity, and questions of meaning.

These dimensions of experience can sometimes provide another language for exploring identity, transition, grief, relationship, purpose, and our inner world.

I approach these areas with cultural humility and according to each client's own beliefs, traditions, identities, and values. They are never assumed or imposed and may or may not be part of our work together.

Mind, Body, Creativity & Relationship

One reason I work integratively is that we are more than our thoughts.

We experience life through our bodies, emotions, relationships, imagination, histories, cultures, and the ways we have learned to adapt and protect ourselves.

Sometimes words are exactly what we need. At other times, paying attention to a sensation, an image, a dream, a protective part, a relationship pattern, or a creative process may open another way of understanding what is happening.

The different approaches I use are not separate techniques that need to be checked off one by one. They are resources that we can draw from thoughtfully as our work develops.

Finding the Right Approach for You

You do not need to arrive knowing whether you need EMDR, somatic therapy, expressive arts, parts work, or another approach.

We can begin with what is bringing you to therapy now and explore together what may be most supportive. The approaches we use can evolve as our work develops.

I offer in-person psychotherapy for adults in Petaluma and San Rafael, California, as well as telehealth throughout California. Limited child therapy appointments are available in San Rafael.

Therapy is available in English and Spanish.

Complimentary 20-minute consultation available.