Areas of Specialization

Eating Disorders

ED therapy with me is based on the following principles:

  1. Eating disorders are not individual problems, but are instead the result of a complex web of factors including social, economic, relational, and political factors. 

  2. The current system of ED treatment is based on the medical model, which views EDs as mental illnesses that need to be cured. We believe that this model is harmful and ineffective, and that we need to create a new system that is based on collaborative healing and liberation. 

  3. ED therapy should incorporate agentic care including attunement to identities of privilege and marginalization, harm reduction, social justice, and both macro and micro level empowerment. 

  4. Effective and compassionate ED treatment is attuned and affirming of neurodivergence and does not aim to “fix” a person’s needs or preferences to suit those of the mainstream. 

  5. EDs do not have a “look” and body liberation for all is central to individual and collective healing.

Treatment Trauma

Many individuals who have been through higher levels of care (inpatient, residential, PHP, IOP) experience suffering and trauma afterwards. While compassionate care exists in some spaces, the realities of the treatment system are bleak and often leave people feeling dejected and hopeless. Perhaps you have been told that you are “too sick” or you have been called a “frequent flyer”. If HLOC did not work for you, there is a good chance that you were not the problem. If you have been through the system and are looking for outpatient care that will accept you where you are and will not coerce you to make change that you are not ready for, you’ve landed in the right place.

Clinicians With Eating Disorders

There is so much stigma in the ED field about being a provider with lived/ing experience of an eating disorder which creates so much shame and unnecessary suffering. Providers with eating disorder struggles deserve a safe space where they can process their experiences and make sense of who they are as a person and as a provider in this context. As a provider with my own lived/ing experience, I love guiding others in how to provide ethical, compassionate, and intentional care while dealing with their own struggles. I also enjoy consulting on cases where countertransference or activation feels present in order to empower clinicians to keep doing the work they love. If you are a provider with an ED, you are important, valid, and have so much to offer. You deserve support and it would be an honor to hold a healing space with you.

Perinatal Mental Health, Trauma, and Disordered Eating

Birthing parents often have unique struggles with nourishment, embodiment, and identity development. For those who experience birth trauma, this process is further complicated by disorientation, grief, shock, and shame. These emotions, along with the general unpredictability of parenthood, naturally elicit the desire for control, agency, and organization- much of which the eating disorder may appear to offer. With or without birth trauma, the experience of matrescence is an incredibly complex one and requires such nuanced attunement and tender care. As your perspectives on yourself and the world shift, you may be able to grow and radicalize in your perspectives on love- both macro and micro. Having a therapist with lived experience as well as an attachment lens can support you in processing through these experiences and coming to new understandings. Please know that you are not alone and you deserve support in this incredibly complex process.