Something Underneath Hasn’t Moved Yet
Individual Therapy for Teens and Adults Carrying Trauma, Anxiety, Chronic Pain, and the Weight of What’s Been Passed Down
You’ve done the work. You’ve shown up, tried different approaches, maybe been in therapy before. And still, something underneath hasn’t shifted. That’s not a sign that healing isn’t possible for you. It’s a sign that what you’re carrying lives deeper than what you’ve been able to reach so far.
Everything you need to heal is already inside you.
This work helps you get there.
Is This You?
- You function well on the outside, but inside you’re exhausted by what you’re carrying.
- Anxiety shows up in your body before your mind even has a chance to catch up.
- You find yourself reacting in ways you don’t fully understand, and can’t seem to stop.
- You’ve been told what’s wrong with you, and something about that has never felt quite right.
- You have a sense that what you’re feeling didn’t start with you, that it goes back further than your own story.
- You’re ready for something that actually reaches the source.
What We Work On
Healing doesn’t start with a diagnosis. It starts with the lens that your current distress is your wise brain / body’s system’s communication that something inside has been asking for attention for a long time. Let’s listen together and learn to trust your system to heal itself with a compassionate, deeply attuned companion on your healing journey. You CAN heal, even if that feels untrue.
Complex & Developmental Trauma
When early and generational experiences of oppression, neglect, abandonment, or wounding disrupt the natural developmental process, the brain adapts. Those adaptations protected you and are how you survived.. But over time they create a painful distance from yourself, from your body, from your own inner life. Healing is about turning back toward what’s inside – gently, and at the speed that honors the wisdom of your nervous system. It is about reconnection and re-embodiment.
Anxiety
Anxiety isn’t just a thought pattern. It’s an embodied experience of hyperarousal that was needed in the nervous system to survive. A nervous system that learned to stay on alert long after the danger passed. It may show up as panic, social anxiety, chronic worry, or a body that never quite settles. We work with it at the level where it actually lives, in the body and the deep brain, not just in the mind.
Depression
Depression often carries a heaviness that goes beyond mood. It’s an embodied experience of hypoarousal that was needed in the nervous system to surviveIt can be a sign of a nervous system that has gone into shutdown, a protective response to pain that was too much to feel. We honor the wisdom of these survival adaptations , and follow the body’s messages to its source.
Chronic Pain & Physical Symptoms
The body holds what has remained unprocessed – it becomes somaticized. Chronic pain, migraines, stomach issues, and other physical symptoms are the nervous system’s way of speaking a language that hasn’t yet been heard. Somatic and Brainspotting approaches work directly with the body’s signals, helping the nervous system find a new way to communicate.
Perfectionism
Perfectionism is one of the most commonly missed manifestations of trauma. It is the nervous system’s way of trying to stay safe, stay acceptable, stay loved, by being beyond reproach. It is exhausting and it is healable.
Sleep Disturbances
Insomnia, nightmares, and restless sleep are signs of a nervous system stuck in a state of hyperarousal. The body is still on guard even when you’re trying to rest. When the nervous system finally begins to release what it has been holding, one of the first things people notice is that they can finally sleep.
Intergenerational & Ancestral Trauma
Some of what we carry didn’t start with us. Patterns of fear, shame, and survival can be passed down through families across generations, showing up in our bodies and our lives without a clear origin story. This work creates space to recognize what was inherited and begin to put it down.
ADHD & Neurodiversity
Being neurodiverse in a world designed for neurotypical minds creates its own kind of wounding. Whether it’s years of being misunderstood, labeled, or made to feel like something is wrong with you, this work meets you exactly as you are and works with the brilliance of your nervous system, not against it.
Shame & Self-Worth
Shame lives deep. It is one of the earliest and most disruptive wounds a nervous system can carry, and one of the hardest to reach through talk alone. Brainspotting and somatic approaches are particularly effective at accessing the places where shame is stored and gently beginning to loosen its hold.
Relationship Difficulties
How we relate to others is shaped by our earliest experiences of connection and disconnection. When those early experiences were painful or inconsistent, they leave a blueprint that follows us into adult relationships. This work helps you understand that blueprint and begin to rewrite it from the inside out.
Isolation & Social Withdrawal
Pulling away from connection is often the nervous system’s protective response to having been hurt in relationship. And yet we are wounded in relationship and we heal in relationship. Gently, carefully, at the pace your system can tolerate, this work helps you find your way back.
Is This The Right Fit For You?
You might have these questions, and I have the answers.
If you’ve been carrying something that hasn’t shifted despite your efforts, individual therapy is likely the right place to start. It’s designed for people who are ready to move beyond managing symptoms and into the deeper work of understanding where those symptoms come from. If you’re unsure, the discovery call is exactly the place to figure that out. There’s no commitment required and no pressure to decide anything before you’re ready.
No. I don’t require a diagnosis and I don’t lead with one. What matters is what you’re experiencing and what you’re ready to work on, not a label that’s been assigned to it.
That experience is worth bringing into our conversation. Many people who find their way here have tried other approaches that didn’t reach what they were hoping to reach. I honor your courage and resilience to try again. That’s not a reflection of your capacity to heal. It’s often a sign that the work needed to go somewhere different. The discovery call is a good place to talk about what’s happened before and what you’re looking for now.
You don’t have to be fully ready. You just need a quiet sense that something needs to change. That’s enough to start with. Reach out and we’ll take it from there.
DBR works with shock energy in the deepest part of the brain stem, the precursor to what happens in the midbrain before feelings happen as everything ascends in the brain. Where Brainspotting works in the subcortical brain, DBR goes even deeper, to the very foundation of the nervous system’s survival responses. Together, these approaches allow us to reach layers of the nervous system that most other modalities simply cannot access.
This Is Not Your Average Therapy.
Most therapy works at the level of the thinking brain. We talk about what happened, try to make sense of it, build new narratives around it. And that has value. But for many people, especially those carrying complex or developmental trauma, the thinking brain isn’t where the pain actually lives.
Trauma lives in implicit memory, which is outside of narrative and outside of conscious recall. In most treatment approaches, there is so much time spent on resourcing and stabilization that by the time people move to direct trauma treatment, they no longer have full access to implicit memory. Implicit memory that remains unintegrated does not disappear. It continues to shape perception, relationships, and behavior from beneath conscious awareness.
The goal of this work is to help what has been implicit become explicit in ways that can be metabolized rather than overwhelming. Achieving this balance during processing is delicate to navigate. It is more of an art than a protocol. That is what I have spent 34 years learning to do.
The origin of what you’re carrying is stored in the deep brain, in structures formed long before you had words for any of it. Brainspotting and DBR access those structures directly, through the body, through the visual field, through the nervous system itself. We don’t have to talk our way to healing. We follow your brain body system to where it needs to go.
Sessions are slow, attuned, and led by your nervous system, not by a protocol or a checklist. I don’t pathologize what comes up. I don’t label it. I follow it with curiosity and deep respect for the brilliance of the system that created it.
This is collaborative work. You are not a passive recipient of treatment. You are the expert on your own inner world. My role is to create the conditions in which your nervous system can do what it already knows how to do. The brain is a self-organizing system. It will reorganize itself. The whole narrative changes.
Intake information can only capture what is accessible in the thinking brain. What lies beneath, what is ready to be healed, will be revealed through the processing itself. This is why no two intensives look the same and why the design cannot be fully determined in advance. We begin with intention, and we follow your system from there.
How It Works
Step 1
Book a Free Discovery Call
Everything starts with a conversation. The discovery call is a chance for us to talk about what’s bringing you in, what you’ve tried before, and what you’re hoping for. It’s also a chance for you to get a feel for how I work and whether this feels like the right fit. There’s no pressure and no commitment. You can schedule directly through the client portal.
Step 2
Complete Your Intake
If we decide to move forward, you’ll receive intake paperwork through Simple Practice, our secure, HIPAA-compliant platform. It’s important to understand that intake information can only capture what is accessible in the cortical, thinking part of the brain. What lies beneath, what is ready to be healed, will be revealed through the processing itself. This is why healing cannot be fully predicted or planned in advance.
Step 3
Begin the Work
Your first session is an opportunity to settle in, connect, and begin at whatever pace feels right for your nervous system. I do not ask you to sit alone and recount your traumas. That is not a trauma-informed approach. Trauma is rooted in aloneness. We do this tender work together, and you are welcome to put the story down. You can heal without ever having to tell it.
Step 4
Ongoing Sessions
From there, we meet regularly and go deeper over time. Sessions are conducted via Simple Practice’s secure telehealth platform if you’re working with me virtually, or in person at my Ventura, CA office. We check in regularly on how things are moving and adjust as we go. The brain is a self-organizing system, and it will reorganize itself. The whole narrative changes.
What Becomes Possible
When the nervous system finally releases what it has been holding, something fundamental shifts. Anxiety that once felt like it was running the show begins to lose its grip. Reactions that used to catch you off guard start to make sense, and then start to soften. Patterns that have followed you across relationships, across years, across generations begin to loosen their hold.
People who do this work often describe a growing sense of steadiness. Not the kind that comes from managing or suppressing, but the kind that comes from something having actually shifted underneath. They feel more present in their bodies. More connected to themselves and the people around them. Less at the mercy of what they’re carrying and instead, experiencing a sense of freedom that had seemed unreachable.
And the healing doesn’t stay inside you. It ripples outward, through every relationship you’re in, through your family, through your children, through the generations that follow.
The weight doesn’t disappear overnight. But it begins to belong to the past, where it always did belong, instead of living in the present moment with you. The freedom is just on the other side. It is profound. It is doable. And you deserve it.
What to Expect in a Session
Every session is different because every nervous system is different. But here’s a general sense of what working together looks like.
We begin by checking in. How are you arriving today? What’s been arising? There’s no agenda to push through and no box to check. We follow what’s alive in the room.
From there, we might move into Brainspotting, DBR, somatic work, IFS, or a blend of approaches depending on what your system is calling for. In a Brainspotting session, you’ll be invited to find a spot in your visual field that connects to what you’re processing. From there, we simply stay with it. The deep brain does the work. Your job is to notice and allow.
Sessions are conducted in deep attunement. I’m tracking your nervous system throughout, following its cues, adjusting as needed. Nothing is forced. Nothing is rushed. We close each session with time to integrate what came up before you leave.
You do not need to tell your story to heal. We get stuck in story. The intention is to get beyond the thinking brain and the narrative entirely. When we do, the brain reorganizes itself and the narrative changes on its own.
Investment
Therapy is a meaningful investment and I want it to be one that works for you. Session rates are discussed during the discovery call, where we can talk about your needs, the frequency that makes sense, and what that looks like practically. If you have questions before booking, you’re welcome to reach out directly.
You have the right to receive a “Good Faith Estimate” explaining how much your medical care will cost. Under the law, health care providers need to give patients who are not using insurance an estimate of the bill for medical items and services.
Ready to Find Out What’s Possible?
You don’t have to have the right words or know exactly what you’re looking for. A conversation between two people to see if working together feels right.
The freedom is just on the other side.
It is profound, it is doable, and you deserve it.