I am licensed in Oregon with 5 years of professional work experience. I have experience in helping clients with stress and anxiety, relationship issues, family conflicts, & trauma and abuse. My training and practical experience has been eclectic, touching on approaches including humanistic (relation-centered), action-centered, cognitive behavioral, narrative, and somatic. I also include in my grasp of any client appreciation for their family, social-cultural, and socioeconomic context. More recently my focus includes some emphasis on the impact of trauma. I have lived in Japan for 14 years of my adult life, as well as spent 30+ pursuing the practice of aikido, a Japanese martial art. Philosophy and Approach Every person has the natural capacity and tendency to heal and return to a healthy equilibrium. A person considering counseling is already making the first step of exercising that tendency. I believe that “loosening up” and releasing the many things we hold, particularly unconsciously, allow us to activate that capacity and return to, or discover, a healthier state of being. Top-down, this would involve uncovering our various thought patterns, reactions, and story that we have about ourselves. Bottom-up, it involves noticing and feeling – the various ways our body is in relation to how we are mentally. I hope to cultivate a relationship with each client to embody trust, safety, inquiry, and honesty, so that healing change can start in the therapy room and extend into one’s life.