How I Work as a Trauma-Informed Therapist in Chicago

Online therapy across Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Oregon, and Massachusetts

Healing That Honors Your Full Story

What We Can Explore Together

I offer trauma-informed, relational, and culturally responsive care that centers your full humanity and lived experience. This includes both individual and couples therapy for those navigating complex emotions, relationships, identities, and systems.

Emotional & Mental Health

  • Anxiety, depression, stress, and burnout

  • Shame, guilt, and perfectionism

  • Grief and loss

  • Life transitions

  • Emotional regulation

  • Cultivating self-compassion

Trauma

  • Attachment wounds and relational trauma

  • Childhood trauma and inner child healing

  • Intergenerational trauma

  • Racial trauma, institutional harm, and systemic oppression

  • Religious trauma, spiritual abuse, and experiences in high-control or cult-like groups

  • Sexual trauma

  • Workplace trauma and toxic environments

Intersectional Identity & Belonging

This work is for those navigating the complexities of identity, belonging, and survival across multiple systems.
Whether you’ve felt invisible, misunderstood, or pressured to shrink yourself to fit in—this is a space to reclaim your truth.

I offer support for:

  • Exploring and embracing the intersectionality of your identities

  • Navigating first-generation and immigrant experiences—including cultural values, family dynamics, and intergenerational patterns

  • Tending to the grief and stress of migration and immigration—including the quiet ache of displacement, separation, longing, and starting over—and the resilience it took to survive

  • Reconnecting with rest, playfulness, pleasure, and embodied self-trust

  • Exploring neurodivergent identity—whether newly discovered or long-held, diagnosed or self-identified

  • Processing the pain of invalidation, especially when your identity or struggle has been dismissed or pathologized

  • Reclaiming voice, boundaries, and authenticity

Relationships, Intimacy & Sex Therapy

I support couples and individuals navigating the emotional and relational challenges that can arise when you’re trying to stay connected while being fully yourself.

  • Communication breakdowns, misattunement, and emotional disconnection

  • Rebuilding connection after experiences of infidelity, secrecy, or emotional distance

  • Navigating intimacy, sex, and desire with honesty and compassion

  • Exploring pleasure, boundaries, and identity in affirming and nonjudgmental ways

  • Parenting stress, grief, and shifting roles

  • Exploring identity or neurodivergence within relationships

  • Re-patterning generational scripts around love, gender roles, or conflict

  • Navigating cultural and intergenerational values in relationships

  • Honoring multiple relationship structures (GSRD-affirming work)

    I'm currently in training and under supervision to become a Certified Sex Therapist, and I bring a sex-positive, culturally sensitive lens to all intimacy and relational work.

My Therapy Approach

My approach is grounded in trauma-informed care, relational safety, and decolonized, justice-oriented healing.

Grounded in both theory and practice, I integrate approaches that support healing at the nervous system, emotional, and relational levels:

  • Polyvagal Theory and somatic practices to help regulate the nervous system and reconnect with the body

  • Attachment Theory, inner child work, and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) to explore early patterns and build safety in connection

  • Interpersonal Neurobiology to understand how the brain, body, and relationships shape our sense of self

  • Feminist and liberation psychology to honor power, culture, and context in the therapy space

  • Systems theories and family-of-origin work to trace how generational and systemic forces show up in the present

  • Narrative therapy to help externalize shame, rewrite internalized messages, and reclaim voice

  • Self-compassion practices, parts work (IFS-informed), and mindfulness to support integration and inner dialogue

  • Gottman Method to support communication

I believe therapy isn’t about “fixing” you, because you’re not broken.
It’s about slowing down, gently listening, and making sense of your story in a space where all parts of you are welcome.

What You Can Expect

Therapy with me isn’t about forcing change or chasing perfection. It’s about gently coming home to yourself, at your own pace.

In our work together, you can expect a space that is warm, nonjudgmental, and deeply attuned to your emotional, cultural, and relational experiences. We’ll move at a pace that honors your nervous system and inner wisdom — there’s no need to rush or perform.

Over time, many clients I work with share that they begin to:

  • Understand how trauma, family dynamics, and systemic forces have shaped their emotions and patterns

  • Feel less shame about their needs, and more clarity about their boundaries

  • Recognize and respond to trauma responses with compassion instead of criticism

  • Rebuild trust in themselves and others, slowly and safely

  • Experience their emotions more fully, without being overwhelmed or shutting down

  • Learn to soothe anxiety and regulate big emotions with practical, body-based tools

  • Shift from people-pleasing or perfectionism to a more grounded, authentic way of being

  • Stop carrying guilt for resting, saying no, or receiving care

  • Explore their identity with curiosity — gently reconnecting with parts of themselves that once felt hidden, “too much,” or left behind

  • Reconnect with their roots, their culture, and their inner child

  • Begin to envision a future not shaped by fear, but by possibility

  • Build deeper emotional connection and understanding in their partnerships

  • Communicate more clearly and openly, even in moments of conflict or tension

  • Get clearer on what they want in relationships and how to ask for it with honesty and care

Whether you’re navigating grief, burnout, relationship wounds, intergenerational trauma, or a deep sense of disconnection, this is a space to slow down, feel safe again, and begin your healing journey with support.

Learn more about me and my values