Individual Psychotherapy for Adults and Teens

I am currently accepting adults and older adolescent clients (high school or college age) only, and work with a wide range of presenting concerns, including anxiety, depression, grief, adjustment, self-injury, sexuality, spirituality, and self-esteem. While I am a generalist by training and enjoy wide diversity in my caseload, I have focused training and experience in a few areas highlighted below.

Eating Disorders and Body Image Concerns

Disordered eating, negative body image, and struggles with weight are areas of particular interest and expertise for me. I appreciate that eating and body-related concerns are often complex, may be accompanied by other symptoms or psychological concerns, can be deeply connected to one’s social, familial, cultural, or sexual identity, and may represent longstanding, entrenched ways of coping with distress. That said, treatment for disordered eating can be equally nuanced and my clinical background has well equipped me to understand and manage the complexities of such treatment. This background includes:

• Coordinator of Eating Disorder Treatment and Consultation Team at the University of Georgia Health Center

• Member of Eating Disorder Treatment Team at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Campus Health Services

• Facilitator/co-facilitator for numerous Body Image/Disordered Eating Treatment Groups

• Workshop co-presenter for Continuing Education Units for UGA Health Center medical staff on Weight Bias in Health Care

• Participant in numerous national conferences/training workshops in area of disordered eating

• Co-organizer for multiple outreach events on college campuses, including the inaugural “Let’s Talk Body” Open Mic Night at UGA

Developmental and Complex Trauma

Many people experience symptoms of post-traumatic distress following a single traumatic event or an event that is relatively limited in duration, such as an accident or assault. Because much of the research on PTSD arose in response to such forms of single-incident or limited-duration trauma, much of our treatment is also geared towards this type of trauma, as well. However, many of my clients have experienced more complicated types of trauma or have endured multiple episodes of trauma whose effects have compounded. I am especially interested in working with those clients whose experiences of trauma pervade multiple areas of their lives, such as their relationships (and patterns of relationships), their self-perception or identity, their development of coping and distress tolerance strategies, and their development of trauma and other symptoms of psychological distress.

Relationship Difficulties

My training is deeply rooted in Interpersonal Theory, which holds that relationships are fundamental to our experience of being human and that most of the time, psychological distress is connected in some way to the quality or nature of our relationships with others. I especially enjoy working with clients who are open to exploring how they connect with others and learning how to communicate and relate in more adaptive ways. While I work from a variety of approaches, I have been trained by Jeffrey Binder, Ph.D. in Time-Limited Dynamic Psychotherapy, which is a short-term interpersonal model, and have also led training seminars on this model. Additionally, I have co-facilitated countless Interpersonal Process Groups at both the University of Georgia’s counseling center and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s counseling center.