An Integrative Approach
There is no single path to healing, growth, or change.
My work brings together psychotherapy, somatic practice, trauma-informed approaches, experiential therapies, contemplative practices, spirituality, and an understanding of expanded states of consciousness.
I don't believe that any one approach is sufficient for every person or every situation. Instead, I draw from a range of perspectives and practices, adapting the work to the individual in front of me.
I work with the whole person: thoughts, emotions, sensations, relationships, history, environment, meaning, and the ways our experiences are held in the body.
My approach is grounded in clinical practice and ongoing education, while also making room for lived experience, curiosity, intuition, and the complexity and mystery of being human. You bring your lived experience and your own inner knowing. I bring clinical knowledge, experience, curiosity, and a range of therapeutic perspectives. Together, we explore what is happening and what may be ready to shift.
Integrative Psychotherapy
At the center of my work is integrative psychotherapy: a whole-person approach that brings together the fundamental principles of psychotherapy with somatic, experiential, relational, contemplative, and creative approaches.
I don't see therapy as simply treating a problem or applying a particular technique. I see it as a collaborative process of understanding yourself more deeply, developing greater awareness and choice, and creating the conditions for meaningful change.
My understanding of wellbeing is also informed by six interconnected dimensions of wellness: mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, relational, and inspirational. These dimensions are foundational to The AMBIKA Method® and reflect my belief that healing rarely happens in isolation.
Trauma, Somatics + Embodied Practice
Trauma is not only something we remember. It can shape the ways we experience our bodies, emotions, relationships, nervous systems, and the world around us.
My work with trauma is informed by EMDR, Somatic Experiencing®, dance/movement therapy, and other embodied and experiential approaches.
Sometimes the work involves directly processing memories, beliefs, or emotions. At other times, we may slow down and notice sensation, movement, impulses, breath, or what is happening in the nervous system in the present moment.
I believe the body carries important information about our experience. Learning to listen to that information can create new possibilities for awareness, regulation, and change.
Somatic work also reflects my belief that healing is not something that happens only through insight. Sometimes we need to experience something differently in the body before a new way of being becomes possible.
Bodywork + Therapeutic Touch
My understanding of the body has also been shaped by many years of hands-on bodywork and therapeutic touch.
My experience includes massage therapy, craniosacral therapy, SomatoEmotional Release, shiatsu, polarity therapy, and other body-based practices. Working directly with the body taught me to listen differently: to tension and release, rhythm and breath, sensation and movement, boundaries and response.
That experience continues to inform the way I understand embodiment and the relationship between physical, emotional, and energetic experience.
Mind, Body + Contemplative Practices
Long before I became a psychotherapist, I was drawn to practices that cultivate awareness through the body and attention.
My work has been shaped by meditation, mindfulness, yoga, yoga therapy, breathwork, pranayama, movement, and other contemplative practices.
These practices have taught me a great deal about presence, awareness, embodiment, and the capacity to meet our experience with greater curiosity and compassion.
I continue to draw from these traditions in ways that support deeper awareness and connection with the body, mind, and present moment.
Spirituality, Meaning + Inner Life
Spirituality has always been an important part of how I understand healing and human development.
My work can make space for questions of meaning, purpose, faith, mystery, connection, transformation, death, and our relationship to something larger than ourselves.
I don't believe spirituality needs to look a particular way, and I don't impose a particular belief system on the people I work with. Instead, I meet people where they are and make room for their own beliefs, questions, experiences, and ways of making meaning.
My work has been influenced by contemplative traditions, spiritual practice, time spent in retreat and intentional communities, and many years of exploring the intersection of psychology and spirituality.
For some people, spiritual questions are central to the work. For others, they may emerge naturally during periods of transition, healing, or profound experience.
Symbolic, Intuitive + Esoteric Traditions
I also make space for symbolic, intuitive, archetypal, and esoteric ways of understanding our experience.
Dreams, mythology, symbolism, astrology, archetypal frameworks, personality systems, and other traditional and contemporary forms of meaning-making can offer another language for exploring who we are and how we move through the world.
I don't approach these systems as definitive answers. Rather, I see them as lenses that can sometimes help us notice patterns, ask new questions, access intuition, and understand an experience from a different perspective.
When these ways of knowing are meaningful to someone, they can become part of the larger conversation about identity, relationships, purpose, transformation, and the mysteries of being human.
Energy + Subtle Body Practices
My understanding of healing has also been influenced by traditions that work with energy, attention, and the subtle dimensions of embodied experience.
My studies and experience have included Reiki, energy medicine, polarity therapy, craniosacral work, and other subtle-body practices.
These traditions have expanded the way I think about the relationship between body, mind, energy, attention, and healing. They are part of the broader landscape that has shaped my understanding of the human experience.
Expanded States of Consciousness
A significant part of my personal and professional work has been the exploration of expanded states of consciousness.
This includes psychedelic experiences and psychedelic-assisted work, as well as other non-ordinary states that may arise through meditation, breathwork, contemplative practice, intensive retreats, near-death experiences, and other profound experiences of consciousness.
I've also spent time exploring the territory around spiritual emergence and spiritual emergency: experiences that can be deeply meaningful and transformative, but can also be confusing, destabilizing, or difficult to integrate.
My work in this area includes psychedelic preparation and integration and has been shaped by both professional training and extensive personal exploration.
I approach these experiences with psychological grounding while also making room for their depth, mystery, and potential meaning.
Plants, Nutrition + Natural Healing
My relationship with healing has also included a longstanding exploration of plants, food, nourishment, and the natural world.
This includes North American herbalism, herbal medicine, nutrition, food as medicine, aromatherapy, and the broader relationship between people, plants, nature, healing, and consciousness.
My personal and professional exploration has also included plant medicines and psychedelics, and the ways they can be encountered within ceremonial, spiritual, therapeutic, and other contexts.
I believe how we nourish ourselves matters deeply to our wellbeing. Food, sleep, movement, environment, relationships, and the ways we care for our bodies are all part of the larger picture of health.
My relationship with plants and food has deepened my respect for the intelligence of the natural world and for the many ways human beings have turned to nature in relationship with healing and transformation.
A Whole-Person Philosophy
Across all of these approaches, there are a few principles that remain constant.
Healing is collaborative. You and I are partners in the work. What happens in therapy, coaching, or other forms of support is co-created.
The whole person matters. Body, mind, emotions, relationships, spirit, environment, and community all shape our experience of health and wellbeing.
There is no single path. Different people need different things at different moments. I draw from both conventional and complementary approaches with curiosity, discernment, and attention to what is appropriate for the person in front of me.
Healing is more than the treatment of illness. It can also involve cultivating greater capacity, connection, meaning, vitality, creativity, and choice.
I remain a student. My practice continues to evolve through clinical work, education, supervision, research, personal exploration, and an ongoing willingness to question what I think I know.
A 360° View of Wellbeing
All of these approaches are part of a larger way of seeing the human experience.
One of the philosophical foundations of my work is the understanding that wellbeing is multidimensional. We are not only our thoughts or our symptoms, just as we are not only our bodies or our relationships. Our mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, relational, and inspirational lives are continually influencing one another.
These six dimensions of wellness provide a kind of 360-degree map for considering the whole person. Sometimes one dimension needs more attention than another. Sometimes what appears to be a problem in one area is connected to something happening somewhere else.
This is part of what I mean by an integrative approach. Rather than looking for a single explanation or a single intervention, we can step back and ask: What is happening here, and what might support greater balance, capacity, connection, and wellbeing?
There is no formula for healing. The work is to listen carefully, stay curious, and discover what is true, what is useful, and what is possible for you.