Therapy Approaches

I integrate Attachment Theory, Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT) for Individuals, Attachment Theory, Psychodynamic Therapy, the Developmental Model, and Internal Family Systems (IFS). These evidence-based approaches work together to help you better understand yourself, shift long-standing emotional patterns, and create a more secure and compassionate relationship with yourself and others.

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Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT): Reorganizing Attachment and Emotional Experience

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Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT) is an attachment-based, experiential approach that focuses on how emotions, meaning, and attachment needs organize a person’s inner world and sense of self. Rather than simply identifying emotions, EFIT helps transform how emotions are experienced, understood, and responded to internally.

Understanding Attachment-Based Emotional Patterns
EFIT explores how emotional responses are shaped by attachment history and how these responses influence beliefs about self, others, and relationships. This work helps shift rigid patterns such as emotional shutdown, self-blame, fear of closeness, or heightened reactivity.

Working with Emotion, Meaning, and Attachment Needs
Emotions are explored not only for what they feel like, but for what they signal about needs for safety, connection, and worth. EFIT helps clients make sense of emotional experiences and develop a more compassionate and responsive internal system.

Creating Secure Attachment to Self
Through an attuned therapeutic relationship, EFIT supports the development of felt safety, self-soothing, and internal security. Clients gradually experience themselves as more capable, worthy, and emotionally resilient, allowing new patterns of relating to self and others to emerge.

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Attachment Theory: Understanding and Healing Relationship Dynamics

 

Attachment Theory provides the foundation for understanding how early relationships shape emotional safety, intimacy, and self-worth throughout life.

Recognizing Attachment Patterns
Exploring attachment styles—secure, anxious, avoidant, or disorganized—helps identify recurring relational and emotional patterns. This awareness allows for more intentional responses rather than automatic reactions.

Healing Attachment Wounds
Unmet emotional needs or inconsistent caregiving can lead to ongoing fears of abandonment, emotional withdrawal, or chronic self-criticism. Therapy offers a corrective relational experience where these wounds can be safely explored and healed.

Building Emotional Regulation and Security
As attachment security strengthens, emotions become more manageable. Clients learn to respond to emotional experiences with curiosity, self-compassion, and increased stability.

Psychodynamic Therapy: Making Sense of Repeating Patterns
 

Psychodynamic Therapy helps uncover unconscious emotional and relational patterns rooted in early experiences.

Exploring Recurrent Themes
Clients often notice repeating cycles in relationships, self-perception, or emotional responses. Therapy invites curiosity rather than judgment about these patterns.

Linking Past and Present
Understanding how earlier experiences shape present-day reactions allows for greater choice, agency, and intentional change.

Strengthening Identity and Agency
Insight fosters a more cohesive sense of self and supports living in alignment with personal values.

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The Developmental Model: Supporting Missed or Interrupted Growth

 

The Developmental Model focuses on how emotional and relational development unfolds—and how growth can be interrupted when early needs for safety, attunement, or support were unmet.

Identifying Developmental Gaps
Interrupted emotional development may show up as difficulty trusting, chronic self-doubt, emotional dependence, or feeling “stuck” at certain life stages.

Providing Developmentally Responsive Support
Therapy offers experiences that support emotional growth at an appropriate pace, helping clients build capacities that may not have been fully developed earlier.

Fostering Emotional Maturity and Stability
As development resumes, clients often experience increased resilience, confidence, and internal stability.

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Internal Family Systems (IFS): Healing the Relationship Within

 

Internal Family Systems views the psyche as made up of different parts, each with unique roles and intentions. This approach is particularly helpful for navigating inner conflict and self-criticism.

Understanding Protective and Wounded Parts
Some parts protect through control, perfectionism, or avoidance, while others carry pain, fear, or shame. All parts are welcomed and understood.

Accessing the Core Self
IFS supports connection to the Self, the calm, compassionate internal leader capable of healing and integration.

Creating Inner Balance and Integration
As parts feel understood and supported, inner tension eases, allowing for greater self-compassion, clarity, and emotional regulation.

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Together, we’ll explore how your past shapes your inner world, so you can move forward with greater emotional security, authenticity, and purpose.