I am a mother, a partner, and a therapist and I love all my different jobs. I approach my work as a therapist from a relational perspective. I believe that mental wellness is highly influenced by the various relationships we enter into throughout our lives. When our relationships as a child are nurturing, safe, empathetic, and growth-fostering, we tend to flourish as adults. However, when these early relationships are fraught with conflict, unequal or unhealthy power dynamics, or lacking in safety, our mental health suffers and we struggle to thrive as adults. Therapy is a great place for you to enter into a new type of relationship and be supported in a safe, empathetic space. My work with clients begins with building a strong, mutually empowering, and productive therapeutic relationship. From there, we enter into the difficult therapeutic work together. Our work often focuses on helping the client see how their younger selves developed defense mechanisms to stay safe and cared for in childhood and how, with time, these defense mechanisms become outdated and no longer serve us. By examining and understanding these with compassion, clients can decide for themselves whether these survival strategies are still serving them. I then work alongside my clients to identify new ways to approach old issues in order to help them meet our therapeutic goals.