Recovery doesn't only happen when you're sitting across from a therapist. It happens when you're trying to leave the house, build a routine, reconnect with friends, navigate treatment decisions, or figure out what comes next. That's the work I found myself drawn to.
I'd wanted to be a therapist since I was 12, but when I began working in mental health, I realized I wasn't suited for the office or the paperwork. I thrive working face to face, in clients' real living contexts.
If you're already doing the work, you deserve support that fits into your actual life
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The moments that happen outside the therapy office, like helping people physically sort through overwhelming spaces. Helping someone who had been afraid to leave the house practice going outside. Helping clients move from a screaming rage to something quieter, clearer, and more communicative. I realized I didn't want to dig into a client's childhood trauma in the way a therapist might. I wanted to trust therapists with that work while I focused on the concrete behavioral issues and goals of the day.
I also saw how easy it can be for people to become over-treated, over-pathologized, and disconnected from their own instincts. Some clients had learned so much mental health language that they could barely describe their feelings without turning them into symptoms. Some were holding themselves to a standard of "healedness" that just didn't seem reasonable.
That's when I realized the work I was most drawn to wasn't replacing therapy. It was helping people navigate everything that happens in between.
I loved the hands-on parts too much
I've tried to write a tidy paragraph explaining how I coach, but the truth is, it doesn't really work that way. Every client is different. Every life is different. But there are a few ideas I come back to again and again.
- We look for genuine motivation instead of "shoulds."
- We make room for hobbies, community, fun, and the parts of you that have nothing to do with mental health.
- If another type of support might be helpful, we'll explore it together. That could mean somatic therapy, psychedelic-assisted therapy, personal training, equine therapy, or something else entirely.
Or at least the closest thing I've found to one
- I start with your story, paying special attention to your strengths and how you've survived.
- I want to understand your actual life, not just your symptoms.
- We look at what's already helping, what isn't, and what might be missing.
- We spend at least as much time talking about what can be added to your life as what needs to change.
- If you're already doing therapy, CBT, DBT, or exposure work, I'll help you figure out what's getting in the way without assuming the obstacle is you.
I don't believe there is one right version of wellness. I don't believe the goal is to become perfectly healed, perfectly regulated, or perfectly self-aware. I care more about suffering and harm. What creates more of it? What creates less of it? What helps you feel more steady, more capable, and more like yourself?
I've seen how easily mental health language can become another way to judge ourselves. I've seen people lose trust in their own instincts because they're trying so hard to recover the "right" way. That's why I'm passionate about helping mental health clients empower themselves with greater knowledge of their options, less-demonizing self-assessment, and a return to their own instincts and values.