Therapy doesn’t have to happen indoors

I believe our environment matters to our mental health. Sometimes sitting across from another person in a small room can make therapy feel more intense, clinical, or stuck in your head.

That’s one reason I offer walk-and-talk and hiking therapy on trails in Portland. Walking side-by-side can make difficult conversations feel more natural. Movement can help settle the nervous system, loosen up stuck thoughts, and create space for new perspectives. And being outdoors can reconnect us with parts of ourselves that are harder to access when we spend most of our lives indoors, looking at screens and moving from one obligation to another.

Sometimes we walk. Sometimes we stop. Sometimes we sit under a tree. The natural world simply becomes part of the therapeutic space.

 

How I work

I don’t believe there is just one path to healing. My work draws from an integrative approach that blends solutions focused, cognitive behavioral, psychodynamic and interpersonal approaches, mindfulness, somatic work, Internal Family Systems, ecotherapy, and adventure therapy.

 

Therapy is about getting curious together

Why does rejection hit you so hard? Why do you automatically take care of everyone else? Why can you accomplish difficult things and still feel like you aren't enough? Why does part of you desperately want closeness while another part wants to escape? Often, the patterns that frustrate us most make much more sense when we understand where they came from. And understanding them can give us more freedom to choose what comes next.

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I especially enjoy working with people who...

• Feel deeply but have learned to hide it

• Overthink relationships and worry about rejection

• Have difficulty disappointing people or setting boundaries

• Grew up taking care of other people's emotional needs

• Live with anxiety, ADHD, perfectionism, or a sensitive nervous system

• Feel most like themselves when they're outside

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A little about me

Outside the therapy room, I'm usually happiest somewhere in the mountains. I've spent thousands of miles hiking, backpacking, climbing, and mountaineering, and those experiences have profoundly shaped how I understand fear, resilience, identity, belonging, and our innate need for wild places. I’ve seen how a difficult climb can change someone's understanding of what they're capable of. How walking can make a conversation possible that felt impossible sitting still. How awe can temporarily quiet the relentless voice in our heads. And how being somewhere wild can sometimes help us remember who we are underneath all the roles we're expected to play.​

You don't need to love hiking to work with me. And therapy with me doesn't have to happen outdoors (I have an office!)

But whether we're meeting on a trail or through a screen, my goal is similar: to create a place where you don't have to perform, prove yourself, or have everything figured out just yet. You can simply show up as you are and we can go from there.