My Approach
Curiosity, creativity, and compassion— I believe these qualities are essential for effective psychotherapy. Here’s how I bring them into every session:
Curiosity: I want to hear all about you! No detail is insignificant; everything relates in some way to the bigger picture, even if we can’t see it at first. I encourage you to share about your fears, hurts, hopes, dreams, desires, and disappointments; your relationships past and present; and your thoughts about yourself and others. It’s all important.
Creativity: With your input, I will carefully create therapeutic interventions that are tailored to your own unique needs and preferences (because what’s effective for one person may not work at all for another). Your treatment plan may include practical supplements to your regular psychotherapy sessions, like journaling and education on mindfulness-based coping skills.
Compassion: I prioritize maintaining a safe, peaceful space that’s focused on understanding you. It’s important that you’re able to relax and feel comfortable during your session, so I keep my office clean and sensory-friendly with low lamplight, comfortable furnishings, and gentle white noise to minimize any distractions as we chat.
My therapeutic approach is trauma-informed and guided by concepts from humanistic therapy, relational therapy, and psychodynamic therapy. I also enjoy using interventions from ACT (Acceptance & Commitment Therapy), such as values work and mindfulness practices.
I’m dedicated to helping my clients learn from their past, navigate their present, and plan for their future.
Education, Training, & Experience
2007 - 2009 I started college in my early twenties with the intent of becoming an art therapist. I double-majored in Visual Arts and Psychology until 2009, when I moved to the Gulf Coast of Florida and took a year-long break from my studies.
2010 When I transferred to University of West Florida for my junior year, I decided to drop the art major to pursue a psych degree exclusively. I threw myself into learning everything I could about the field. In addition to my regular courses, I worked as a research assistant for Dr. Lisa VanWormer in UWF’s Attention and Memory Lab, where we studied the effects of aging on cognition.
2011 I completed a minor in Child Welfare with a focus on adolescent development and psychology, began shadowing a local ABA therapist who worked with children with autism, and continued assisting Dr. VanWormer in the Attention and Memory Lab. In April, I helped present our cognitive aging research at UWF’s first Student Scholars Symposium; our project, titled “The Roles of Visual Short-Term Memory and Working Memory in Change Detection,” tied for first place in the Graduate Collaborative division.
2012 - 2016 A few days after graduating summa cum laude with my B.A. in Psychology, I gave birth to my son and temporarily put my career plans on hold in order to focus on motherhood. One year later, my partner received orders to an overseas duty station and our family moved to the United Kingdom, where we lived for four years.
2017 In the summer of 2017, we moved back to the States and I immediately applied to graduate school at Wake Forest University. I was accepted into their rigorous CACREP-accredited Clinical Mental Health Counseling program that fall, and started my first semester early the next year.
2019 I was invited to become a member of Chi Sigma Iota, the international honor society for counseling, and was inducted into the organization in December.
2020 I first began seeing clients in January as part of my graduate internship at Bridgeway Center, a community mental health clinic in Ft. Walton Beach, FL. I stayed with Bridgeway for the duration of that year and completed 825 hours of clinical training. I provided individual counseling for clients with a range of mental health issues, and co-facilitated the center’s intensive outpatient (IOP) group for clients with alcohol and substance use disorders.
2021 In May, I graduated from Wake with my M.A. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. I obtained my national board certification (NCC) shortly afterward, demonstrating my ongoing commitment to upholding the highest standards of ethics and training within the field. In June, I became provisionally licensed as a Registered Mental Health Counselor Intern (FL) and moved from community mental health to a private practice setting, where I provided individual and family psychotherapy to children, adolescents, adults, and couples experiencing anxiety, depression, PTSD, mood disorders, neurodivergence, life transitions, relationship issues, and concerns related to sexuality and gender identity.
2023 In October, after passing the state-required benchmark of providing 1,500 postgraduate hours of psychotherapy, I became independently licensed in Florida as a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC).
2025 I opened my solo practice, Emerald Coast Psychotherapy, located in Navarre, FL. I also enrolled at the Florida Psychoanalytic Center in Coral Gables, FL, where I’m currently working on becoming certified in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy.