Treatment

I treat adults with: 

Anxiety and OCD
Spectrum Disorders: 

  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder 

  • Specific Phobias 

  • Panic Disorder

  • Generalized Anxiety Disorder 

  • Social Anxiety 

  • Body Dysmorphic Disorder

  • Misophonia 


Trauma:

  • Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

  • Childhood abuse

Eating Disorders: 

  • Anorexia Nervosa 

  • Binge Eating Disorder 

  • Bulimia Nervosa 


 Mood Disorders:

  • Depression


Body-Focused
Repetitive Behaviors:

  • Skin picking (Excoriation Disorder)

  • Hair pulling (Trichotillomania)

Life Challenges: 

  • Adjustment to life changes (college, career changes, break ups) 

  • Family or relationship conflict


Emotional Dysregulation:

  • Difficulties managing intense emotions

  • Difficulties in relationships

I utilize a range of empirically-supported cognitive behavioral therapies, which assist in noticing and changing ineffective patterns of thinking and behaving that may be leading to feelings of distress.  I aspire to create an atmosphere of compassion, openness, and mutual collaboration, as we work towards building awareness and flexibility, learning skills to cope with difficult emotions, exposures, and more.  Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is goal-directed and present-focused, and we will work on creating meaningful change, and generalizing that change to many different situations that arise in your life. At the same time, we can leave room to acknowledge and validate the role of the past, and how your context informs the patterns we identify, in the service of making these changes. 

I believe strongly in using evidence-based treatments in my practice, while also adapting my approach to meet my clients’ distinct needs and goals. The evidence-based treatments I use include:   

  • Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP): ERP is considered the gold standard treatment for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and involves approaching feared thoughts, images, or situations (exposure), while resisting urges to do compulsive behaviors to relieve distress in the short term (response prevention). 

  • Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): ACT is a type of CBT that focuses on building psychological flexibility, to identify the ways in which we are getting stuck on difficult thoughts and feelings that aren’t workable for us, and finding ways to still move towards the things that are in line with our values and most important in our lives. 

  • Enhanced Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT-E): CBT-E is a treatment for eating disorders, which aims to change the relationship we have with food and our body image by changing the behaviors that lead to consistent over-evaluation of shape and weight, as well as targeting the over-evaluation itself.

  • Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): DBT is a treatment focused on building skills to manage interpersonal and emotional dysregulation, to move towards building a “life worth living” and a life in line with our values, and works to balance acceptance and validation with change and problem-solving.  

  • Habit Reversal Therapy (HRT): HRT is an evidence-based treatment to break habits (such as hair pulling and skin picking), by building awareness, developing new and competing responses, and soothing our body’s sensory needs without body-focused repetitive behaviors. 

  • Skills Training in Affective and Interpersonal Regulation Narrative Therapy (STAIR Narrative Therapy): STAIR Narrative Therapy is an evidence-based treatment for PTSD which targets building interpersonal and emotional regulation skills that have been depleted or negatively affected by the experience of trauma, in order to improve functioning and help heal. 

  • Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT): CPT is another evidence-based treatment for PTSD, which focuses on challenging unhelpful thought patterns related to traumatic experiences, to decrease the way trauma impacts the present.

  • Prolonged Exposure (PE): PE utilizes exposure to treat PTSD, by systematically and gradually approaching memories, feelings, situations, items, etc. related to the trauma, in order to work to decrease symptoms and promote healing from traumatic events.