A life where you move with clarity knowing who you are, who you're becoming, and what stands in the way. Where you respond to life instead of just reacting. Where your patterns make more sense, your pain feels less lonely, and your choices feel more intentional.
What if healing didn’t mean becoming someone new but coming home to yourself?
Individual therapy in Hermosa Beach and online in California
You have wounds that need tending, patterns that once protected you but now ask to be unlearned, and new ways of being that want to be practiced.
It takes time to unravel what was passed down, and even more time to replace it with something new. But nothing is broken at your core. Nothing is wrong with you.
You deserved to be seen, understood, valued, and loved.
And therapy can be the space where all of that begins to unfold.
There’s nothing wrong with you
I believe meaningful therapy invites us into a deeper relationship with ourselves. It’s not about quick fixes or learning how to tolerate more of the same; it’s about understanding why we are the way we are, feeling what we’ve had to suppress, and learning how to do things differently.
Insightful, relational, and emotionally attuned therapy for people who want more than just coping
ONLINE THERAPY
- Anxiety
- Depression
- High-Achievers
- Shame
- Trauma
- Divorce
- Parenting
- Body Image
- Insecurities
- Intimacy/Sex
- Self-Sabotaging
- Life Transitions
- Relational Issues
- Existential Issues
- Loss / Grief / Death
- Attachment Wounds
- Self-Esteem / Identity
- Religion / Spirituality
- Communication Issues
- Stress management
- Boundaries
In individual therapy we can work on...
Individual therapy in Hermosa Beach and online in California
high-achieving individuals
relational trauma and attachment wounds
moms
areas of specialty
Individual therapy in Hermosa Beach and online in California
The work we do is grounded in three interconnected layers:
how your early experiences shaped you
Access repressed emotions
practice new ways of being
01.
02.
03.
No one grows up in a perfectly attuned environment. Even the most loving caregivers can miss things. And so, we adapt. We learn how to be safe, how to belong, how to stay connected. Maybe you learned to be the good one, the achiever, the invisible one, the peacekeeper, the caretaker, or the emotionally self-sufficient one. These survival strategies once served you, but now? They might be keeping you stuck.
In therapy, we begin asking:
- What did you have to do to stay connected to the people you depended on? Who did you have to become to feel safe, accepted, or loved?
- What needs did you have to mute to maintain closeness? What do you believe you’re allowed to need, or not need, from others?
- How did your family handle conflict? Vulnerability? Boundaries?
- What core beliefs about yourself were formed in that early environment? What parts of you were welcomed? What parts were ignored, criticized, or misunderstood?
- What roles did you play that still show up in your adult life even when they no longer fit?
We look at how your early experiences shaped your sense of self
Individual therapy in Hermosa Beach and online in California
When we cut off certain emotions to stay close to others, those emotions don’t disappear. They live in the body, and they find ways to speak through anxiety, burnout, irritability, shame, perfectionism, shutdown or chronic over-functioning.
In therapy, we make space for those feelings to come forward - not just talk about them, but actually feel them, in real time, in a way that’s held, slow, and safe.
This is where healing begins: when you stop abandoning parts of yourself just to stay acceptable to others.
Together we’ll explore:
- What feelings did you learn to suppress or disown? What emotions feel threatening or “too much”?
- What does your body do when big feelings start to surface? Where do those emotions live in your body now?
- Where do you feel disconnected from your emotional self or overwhelmed by it? What have those buried parts of you been trying to say?
- How do you protect yourself from feeling too much, and how has that been both helpful and limiting?
- What would it be like to give yourself permission to feel fully, without shame or apology?
We integrate the emotions you’ve had to set aside
Individual therapy in Hermosa Beach and online in California
Maybe it looks like:
- Saying no without guilt
- Allowing rest without earning it
- Speaking up when something hurts
- Receiving care instead of always giving it
- Slowing down instead of speeding past your needs
- Choosing a partner or job or life that aligns with who you are now and not who you had to be
- What patterns do I want to shift?
- What feels possible now that didn’t before?
- What behaviors align with the version of myself I’m becoming?
- Where can I experiment with being more honest, more soft, more bold, more true?
- What happens when I choose something different, and how can I keep choosing it, again and again?
We practice new ways of being
Individual therapy in Hermosa Beach and online in California
After spending years in mediation with couples at the end of their relationships, I decided to head down a more positive path becoming a therapist who specializes in work with couples. The goal in therapy is for clients to gain clarity and direction in their relationships, and to learn tools for happier and healthier bonds with their partners.
My main theoretical approach to couples therapy is Imago Relationship Therapy that believes that our childhood experiences and attachment wound create expectations and defenses that cause problems in our relationship. The goal of therapy is to help couples heal old childhood wounds by recognizing and interrupting old patterns and developing healthier ones.
While I take most from Imago, I consider myself an integrative therapists by borrowing from different modalities I am trained in.
Who I am.
· Imago Couples Therapy with Harville Hendrix, certificate
· The Relational Life Therapy Approach to Couples Therapy with Terry Real, master class
· Encounter-Centered Couples Therapy: “Teaching Couples the Art of Connection” training
· The Gottman Method to Treating Affairs and Trauma: An Advanced Training Course
· Healing from Affairs Training with Tammy Nelson: Moving Past the Trauma of Betrayal and Infidelity
· Integrative Sex and Couples Certification Training: Certified Sex Therapy Informed Professional (CSTIP) Course
· Integrative relationship therapy certification with Tammy Nelson
· Transformative approach to couples therapy with Esther Perel, master class
Couples therapy in Hermosa Beach and online in California
How to get started
contact me
Reach out using the contact form. Share a bit about what’s bringing you to couples therapy- no need to overthink it. I’ll get back to you with next steps.
01.
initial
consultation
Reach out using the contact form. Share a bit about what’s bringing you to couples therapy- no need to overthink it. I’ll get back to you with next steps.
02.
first
appointment
If we decide to work together, in our first full session, we’ll dive into what’s been feeling stuck or painful in your relationship. I’ll help you both slow things down, name what’s not working, and begin mapping a path forward.
03.
ongoing
sessions
We’ll work together weekly (or biweekly, depending on your needs) to build stronger communication, heal past wounds, and create more connections. Every step is tailored to your relationship, not a one-size-fits-all plan.
04.
In all the world, there is no one exactly like me. There are persons who have some parts like me, but no one adds up exactly like me. Therefore, everything that comes out of me is authentically mine because I alone choose it.
I own everything about me; my body including everything it does; my mind including all its thoughts and ideas; my eyes including the images of all they behold; my feelings whatever they may be… anger, joy, frustration, love, disappointment, excitement; my mouth and all of the words that come out of it polite, sweet or rough, correct or incorrect; my voice loud or soft; and all my actions, whether they be to others or to myself.
I am me.
I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own all my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By doing so, I can love me and be friendly with me in all parts. I can then make it possible for all of me to work in my best interests. I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me and other aspects that I do not know. But as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and for ways to find out more about me.
However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is ME. This is authentic and represents where I am in that moment in time. When I review later how I looked and sounded, what I said and did, and how I thought and felt, some parts may turn out to be unfitting. I can discard that which is unfitting, and keep that which proved fitting, and invent something new for that which I discarded.
