About
Find relief the integrative way.
Your mental health is suffering, interfering with your school performance or work, and something needs to change. A skeptic of traditional psychiatry’s reliance on medication, you’re conflicted – you wonder if it might do more harm than good.
It’s not that you’re entirely opposed to medications, but there must be other, more natural ways to feel better. You want to be more functional, but you don’t want to be overly reliant on medications – or feel overmedicated.
You’re not looking to numb out, and you know you can’t medicate your problems away – but you want relief from the intensity of what you’re experiencing.
Being more open to natural interventions and alternative healing modalities to help you deal and move forward, you’ll find the practice of integrative psychiatry to be a breath of fresh air.
We’re not closing the door on medications – but that’s not all we’re looking to for help, and if we can avoid medications altogether, great!
You seek deep, lasting healing.
Your life experiences have informed who and where you are today, where you’re going, and why you are interested in taking this approach to mental health. You do not want to be viewed simply through a lens of “illness” and given medications as bandages – it is never that simple!
You are a complex being consisting of many moving parts, and you want to bring them into balance and feel at ease. You are looking for deep healing, not surface symptom management.
Integrative psychiatry helps find the root of your pain.
We examine the interplay between your unique mind (beliefs and values, traumatic experiences), body (gut, brain, metabolic and immune health), lifestyle (relationships, sleep, habits, nutrition, and exercise), and spirituality (connection and belonging).
A comprehensive initial assessment opens the doorway to fine-tuning your treatment. Treatment may include herbs and other supplements, judicious use of medications, diet changes, mind-body practices, and somatic therapy.
We will get creative with the use of tools at our disposal, and referrals when necessary, to get you the relief you are seeking
Imagine unlocking the path to health, vitality, and your awesome potential, while moving forward with clarity, stability, and confidence that you got this. Let’s give this a go!
Our journey is collaborative.
In sessions with me, I deeply listen while you speak. You will find me to be genuinely caring, deeply empathetic, and quirky in a fun way to which you can relate.
What YOU know about you greatly informs our work together, and I value what you bring to the table. I am here to be on this journey with you, and it is collaborative all the way.
Using all of the clinical expertise at my disposal, I will help guide you toward health and back to your innate wisdom, which may have gotten buried underneath unhelpful psychological, emotional, and physical patterns. This innate wisdom is always there to serve you; it just needs regular tending.
I will help you in this journey that leads toward a healthy and fulfilling life.
About Me
Who am I, and how did I get here?
And now, a bit about my journey and qualifications. I am a Bellingham, WA, native, excited to have returned to my roots. Growing up, I was always the one my brothers would call for when hurt. I was a natural born empathic nurturing type, soothing tears and nerves, and also helping lots of wounded or at-risk critters!
My undergraduate degree from the University of Washington is in Botany. Being the forest lover that I am, I intended to have a career in forest pathology, but life had other plans for me…
After my undergraduate studies, my grandfather became ill with cancer. As I sat with him while he was actively dying, I found in myself a strength to be with death and dying that I had not yet tapped.
The hospice nurse role was so inspiring to me that off I went to nursing school. I worked as a hospice nurse for several years before deciding to dedicate my learning to the field of mental health. This decision led me to the Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program at the University of California, San Francisco.
Having struggled with my own problems related to depression, anxiety, and spiritual crises, I was thrilled to learn how to help others through theirs.
After graduating in 2016, I worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs in San Francisco and Oakland for 5 years. It became increasingly clear that so many people don’t get their needs met through traditional medicine or psychiatry.
As someone interested in exploring alternative healing methods by accessing deeper layers of the psyche, such as through breathwork, meditation, somatic therapy, and spiritual practices, when the opportunity for a year-long fellowship through the Integrative Psychiatry Institute came to my attention, I jumped on it. This fellowship ended in June 2021, and I will continue in integrative psychiatry as a lifelong learner.
Training Details
Trainings that will inform our work together include the following: 1) Certified Integrative Psychiatric Provider, 2) ACT Essentials (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), APT Accreditation, Level 2 and 3) Radiant Heart Qigong Level I In-Depth Training and Teacher Certification Course, and 4) Somatic Experiencing ® Practitioner (SEP) certificate.
I am always seeking to expand my knowledge, and up next is taking an EMDR course, for anxiety and trauma, so that I can also offer this to my clients.
