I’ve helped people with a wide variety of issues — depression, anxiety, identity issues, childhood abuse, relationship problems, career crises, divorce, substance dependence, gender exploration, athletic injury and performance, parenting challenges, and more — and worked with individuals from all across the lifespan. While I welcome this breadth of work, I also have several areas of specialization.
People with trauma are often at the mercy of their nervous systems. When something in the present reminds them of past traumatic experiences, their bodies and minds go immediately into self protection mode. Whether that’s fighting, fleeing, freezing, submitting, or seeking attachment, it often feels like their reaction happens automatically and that there’s no option to do something differently. In addition, because many people with childhood trauma were told growing up that their feelings weren’t real, they may even feel protective of their reactivity; it’s as if changing the reaction would somehow mean their feelings weren’t valid.
Many people who’ve lived through childhood abuse aren’t initially aware of the physical and emotional signals that would let them know they’re in an activated state. Once they do begin to recognize the signs, they’re sometimes surprised to realize they’ve been living in an almost-constantly triggered state for years.
Avoidance and dissociation are two common responses to trauma: they’re both ways our minds try to keep us safe from overwhelming feelings. Unfortunately, this often leaves people stuck. Part of them wants to address what they’ve survived in order to get help, while other parts want to avoid it or minimize it as a way of coping with the intense feelings or sensations that arise when doing so.
In trauma therapy, we’ll pay close attention to the window of tolerance you have addressing the past without getting overwhelmed in the present. We’ll work thoughtfully and patiently to slowly build trust and a sense of safety even amidst the storm of strong emotions. We’ll also work hard to respect and listen to all the parts of you that have helped you get through terrible experiences, even when those parts have negative effects in your life today.
When people think of grief, they often think of situations that are certainly painful but that are also foreseeable. They imagine the death of a parent or grandparent to old age, or the loss of a spouse to a protracted illness. These types of loss definitely hurt, but they also conform to ideas we have about the natural order of life, and that order provides a sense of stability and predictability even amidst the pain.
Complicated grief often arises when a loss happens out of order, or when something “unmentionable” or profoundly unexpected occurs. When a parent loses a child, when a sibling commits suicide, when we lose an identity to something outside our control, when a spouse leaves for work and never returns and it startlingly mirrors a parent who left for work and never returned, these types of losses are what can leave people feeling truly unmoored. They also often leave people feeling alone in their grief, as if they can’t talk to others about what they’re going through, and that disconnection from others can compound the feelings.
In therapy for complicated grief and bereavement, we will explore traditional aspects of grief like anger, sadness, and denial, but we’ll also go far beyond those into understanding how and why grief gets stuck. We’ll work with your desire to feel better, but we won’t impose a timeline or protocol on your feelings. Instead, we’ll work to reestablish the link between who you are today with who you were before the loss, to build an enduring but evolved connection with what was lost, and to imagine a meaningful life moving forward.
If I can be transparent with you, I don’t know what to call this type of work. This name makes me wince a bit, but in the spirit of putting yourself out there, Post-Punk Therapy is what I’ve got for now.
Post-Punk Therapy is for people who grew up feeling like the world wasn’t built for them and their beliefs. Instead of conforming to what society told them to be, they found meaning in an ethos of community, of authenticity, of pushing back on the status quo, and of seeing social problems as being about systems rather than the individuals who live in those systems. These values have been central who they are, but as they’ve gotten older and life has asked them to take on more responsibility, they’ve struggled to figure out how to incorporate those important older values with their newer, evolving needs.
When you don’t trust authority and have been abused by those with power, how do you become a parent who sets helpful, consistent boundaries with your own kids? How do you reconcile fighting against capitalism when you also want to start becoming more financially comfortable? How do you find your place in the work world when being told what to do by a boss causes your hair to stand on end?
Post-Punk Therapy doesn’t pretend there’s a magic bullet or an easy fix. Instead, it focuses on helping you navigate these kinds of conflicts in a way that feels authentic and connected to who you are and what you care about. Life requires us to change, but you don’t have to lose what you value most about yourself in order to do so.