Transgender Therapists in Bainbridge Island, WA

If you are struggling with trauma, dysphoria, anxiety, or life in general, I want to help you feel better. I believe you can find the calm, healing, clarity, and joy you seek. I work predominately with adult clients who experience trauma and PTSD (including C-PTSD), gender dysphoria, depression, self-harm, and anxiety and adjustment disorders. I'm particularly passionate about unsticking negative message received in childhood and accompanying folx on their gender journey. I have years of experience supporting folx through gender transition and providing support to their loved ones.

As a client-centered professional, I recognize the strength necessary for an individual to take the first step through the counselor's open door. Through trusting and empathetic positive relationship building, I join my clients in the exploration of a healthier, self-accepting perspective in addressing the challenging components of their life experience. All areas of my practice focus upon acceptance and healthy management of personal questions through the discovery of an enhanced understanding, within a positive environment, which utilizes personal strengths to contribute to a happier, self satisfying life experience. Come take this walk with me...

Clients who work with me feel empowered and reassured on their first visit, and they continue with me, because they notice changes happening. For the past 20 years, I've worked in private and group practices, providing counseling and other services to people from many different walks of life. I help people re-evaluate, become closer to a loved one, process difficult decisions or transitions and grieve significant losses. I enjoy helping people become more truthful about themselves and live with integrity. I fiercely protect the privacy and confidentiality of my clients and provide a private, safe setting for our work together.

Hello and welcome! My work is focused on helping clients strengthen any number of dimensions in their relationships, including emotional connection, safety and intimacy, communication, conflict resolution, self- and other-confidence, trust building and repair from infidelity. I am trained in systems theory, which means I approach therapeutic work through the context of your relational systems, interactions, and feedback loops that create and perpetuate the problems, patterns, and behaviors clients are seeking to resolve. This often translates to facilitating change within the system in contrast to only within the individual.

I have experience working with couples, families and individuals of all ages from a variety of cultures/ethnicities, socio-economic backgrounds, and religious beliefs, as well as LGBTQIA+. My approach is integrated, operating from a systems theory background, with a lens that is relational and informed by awareness of how societal factors impact experience. Working as a certified substance use disorder counselor, I address not only the individual user, but the impact of use on loved ones. I see change happening through shifts from a person seeing themselves as the problem to seeing themselves as a person up against a problem.

"The journey we are on takes us in all different directions, testing us at every turn. There is help and hope. I have been honored to hear people's stories at various points of their journey; witnessing, observing, supporting, empathizing, listening and reflecting. Through hearing their stories, I have learned how fragile the human condition is, and at the same time, the empowering strengths and resiliency each one intrinsically has in adapting and surviving the difficulties put before them."

As an LMFT serving Bainbridge Island, I utilize a humanistic, evidence-based, emotionally focused perspective with children, youth, and adults with concerns including anxiety, depression, attachment, trauma, self-harm, identity, and gender questioning issues. I find Lifespan Integration and Somatic Transformation helpful in resolving trauma. I treat couples and families working through conflict, life transitions, divorce, grief, and loss. Additionally, I am an AAMFT Approved Supervisor and a Washington State Supervisor offering supervision to associates.

I see psychotherapy as a way to more fully empower and express one’s self in the world, whether as a child, teen, or adult, and, in the process, heal the various “symptoms” that stand in the way. It’s my belief and experience that that sense of self is, by nature, strong, clear, and caring, and yet can become problematic, in feelings and behavior, through the difficult experiences that life can bring. I see my role as helping to bring forth the experience of this successful and caring self, and, specifically to assist the client to heal the problematic traumas, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, that interfere with this.

If you're feeling in the dark navigating a difficult transition, you're in the right place. You may doubt your power to change life as it is right now. You may have absorbed cultural messages that say, "There's nothing you can do, things will never improve." I disagree. My specialties include using solutions-oriented methods which include: “Compassionate Effectiveness Training,” "Enneagram profiling," and "Acceptance and Commitment Therapy." Together we’ll work with feelings you might have of being different from the norm; of hoping to find ground in an ever-changing world; of wanting to find a sense of home within yourself.

I welcome you to taking the first step to supporting your individual/couple/family mental/emotional needs. It is a huge step and I am here to support you in your therapeutic process. I am bilingual (English/Spanish) Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. I have extensive training, and experience working with adults, and couples on a broad range of issues particularly trauma, anxiety, depression, relationship issues, and family conflict. In addition to providing therapy, I also lead and organize couples retreats/workshops, therapist retreats (trainings), and Wellness Retreats.

My passion is helping clients rediscover their true potentials and bring joy back into their lives. I follow a strengths-based model of practice while utilizing a combination of psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral techniques. Essentially, I believe in a holistic approach, in that all of our experiences (physical, emotional, spiritual, and social) are integral in our unique compositions. Our early experiences often show up in our current lives, and can manifest themselves in a myriad of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. I value the interaction with my clients and believe in empowering clients by direct participation in the therapeutic process.

It is time to prioritize yourself and rediscover the many pleasures life has to offer. I treat teens, adults and relationships structures who are experiencing overwhelm and distress. Together we will work towards untangling the unhelpful narratives surrounding sex and sexuality, anxiety, depression, perinatal/postpartum mental health, ADHD and feelings of burnout. Feelings of insecurity, shame, discomfort, or boredom can lead to long lasting rifts in our relationships, including the relationship with ourselves. My approach is client centered to ensure that my clients feel truly heard.

I see every person's life story as unique and special. Approaching my clients with warmth, humor, and authenticity allows me to provide a compassionate approach to their specific challenges. I specialize in non-traditional relationship styles, blended families, and co-parenting. I draw from my experience as a Guardian ad Litem & domestic violence evaluator to support my clients during life changes such as traumatic divorce, criminal/legal, parenting, stepparenting, heartbreak, partnering, and marriage. My practice is gender and disability affirming, social justice oriented, and trauma-informed. LGBTQIA+ and polyamorous friendly.

Our lives are complex. As your therapist, it is my job to understand this complexity coupled with your psychological needs to facilitate the realization of your goals. I see my role as understanding you, your history, and your environment in a holistic way and using that knowledge to promote exploration and growth. Beyond understanding why people act the way that they do, I collaborate with you to apply that understanding to interventions that facilitate positive change.

I work with clients from a strengths-based perspective, focusing on resilience development and a collaborative process. I take into consideration where the child or adolescent is truly at and what is going to best engage them—be it artistic expression, play therapy, narrative therapy, creative writing/journaling, or more structured interventions. I focus on the fulfilled development of the whole individual, taking into account a systems approach, intersectionality, and developmental psychology. My approach is deeply rooted in attachment theory; focusing on developing a healthy bond to better facilitate trust and overall growth.

You're considering therapy. It is often a complicated and difficult decision but sometimes we just know that it's time to try something new. I believe taking the courageous step to begin therapy helps individuals and families address challenges that keep us from our full potential. Whether you are suffering from anxiety or depression, relationship issues or isolation, financial preoccupations, or a desire for a new career, you know it is time to work to make things better. I am a psychologist providing flexible, relational therapy to help you to address a range of issues. My style is warm, compassionate, and down-to-earth.

In my practice, I blend NARM with other mindfulness-based methods to help clients gently access and heal unresolved issues in order to decrease unnecessary suffering in their lives. My practice is ideal for clients who are curious about expanding their capacity for intimacy in their relationships and creating greater joy and satisfaction in their lives. I enjoy working with clients who are curious about and engaged in their own healing process, and who are committed to compassion and nonviolence in their relationships with others and with themselves. I welcome adults, adolescents, couples, and clients from the LGBTQI+ community.

Do life's questions take hold of you? Does life itself become questionable? You may struggle to articulate this, let alone discuss it with others. It may seem unspeakable. Yet we need companionship to uncover and address our deepest questions. They cannot be answered bluntly. They have to be lived, and that takes courage, dialogue, and time. I offer attention, patience, and trusting relation as a way to explore your questions and the concerns in which they are rooted.

I offer compassion-based therapy which focuses on what's right and good in you. I team with clients to create a mutual, shared space of compassion, caring and healing. In this space, problems are explored together, losses and hurts are held together. Where there is trauma, it is transformed through body-based somatic therapy and EMDR. I bring a wide array of therapeutic techniques, from ancient wisdom traditions to cutting edge neurobiology, to support your healing and provide practical skills for reaching your goals. Whatever difficulties you face - healing is the rule, not the exception. Private Pay; $160 (some sliding scale)