COUNSELING APPROACH

The counseling relationship is to be a safe place to be curious about your story. As you take risks to put words to that story, my hope is that your time with me will provide the opportunity for you to be seen, heard, known, and fought for.
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​My counseling style is relational, meaning that you and I are meant to build a relationship through which you come to better understand who you are. As I hear your story, I pay attention, listen, observe, and inquire. This beautiful process helps you to begin naming how you feel, what you are experiencing as you share your story, as well as what it is like for me to respond to your story. This awareness creates opportunities to discuss what’s working and what’s not working in your life. It highlights areas you feel stuck, hopeless, or even downright terrified. As we journey together, clarity about heavily-worn paths that don’t bring you life get to be named. You get to courageously choose to carve new paths and dream about new ways of being, noticing where you are being invited to heal and grow.
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As I journey with you, my desire is to:

• celebrate movements towards freedom and grace
• invite you to grieve places of pain and loss
• push back against the lies that steal life
• ​delight in the truth of who you already are and are meant to be​​ ​​​​​​

Interpersonal Process Approach, as well as attachment and object relations theories influence my counseling style. My approach is also heavily influenced by therapist and author, Dr. Dan Allender. An explanation of the Allender Theory can be found HERE.

AREAS OF SPECIALTY

Grief & Loss
Trauma/PTSD
Sexual Abuse

Emotional Abuse
Spiritual Abuse
Narcissistic Abuse

Family Of Origin
Codependency
Anxiety/Depression

Maternal Narcissism
Female Sexual Addiction
Partners of Sex Addicts

I am trained in EMDR, an evidence-based therapy that is helpful in treating anxiety disorders, depression, complicated grief, trauma, and PTSD. If you would like to learn more about EMDR and how it works, you may click on this link:  EMDR Training Center, and scroll down to the bottom of the page to watch a video explaining EMDR.
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EDUCATION & CERTIFICATIONS

Licensed Professional Counselor in Missouri

Advanced Counseling Certificate in Trauma-Focused Narrative Therapy
Allender Center at the Seattle School for Psychology and Theology

Master of Arts in Counseling
Saint Louis University

The WIEBGE acronym stands for Will I Ever Be Good Enough? and signifies level I certification in Dr. Karyl McBride’s five-step recovery model for treating adult children of narcissistic parents.