Working with older adults is incredibly meaningful to me for several reasons. First, they bring a rich history of life experiences that adds depth and context to the therapeutic process. Their stories, perspectives, passion, and resilience offer powerful insights into how people adapt to life’s changes and challenges over time.

Second, older adults are often at a unique stage of psychological development where reflection, meaning-making, and legacy become central themes. Helping them navigate issues like loss, transitions, identity, aging, or cognitive changes allows for deeply rewarding work.

There is also an opportunity to address long-standing patterns of behavior, struggles with mood, relationship concerns, and/or history of trauma that may only surface or become pressing later in life. Third, therapy with older adults is collaborative, grounded, and intentional.

I find that older adults are especially thoughtful in seeking out therapy (either by themselves or with encouragement from family and friends); and this is not a decision taken lightly. There is often a sense of mutual respect and a sincere willingness to engage in therapy for improved mental health and well-being.

These factors allow for a strong therapeutic connection and lend themselves to improved therapeutic outcomes.

Lastly, I believe that older adults are frequently overlooked in mental health care, and I consider it a privilege to be able to advocate for them, reduce stigma, and provide support and encouragement during a time of life that can be both beautiful and complex.

I believe online therapy is effective for older adults for many reasons. Online therapy allows greater accessibility to older adults who might not otherwise be able to attend therapy as it eliminates the barriers of travel time, waiting time, and transportation.

Online therapy also offers increased flexibility, convenience, comfort, and availability of skilled providers for older adults. I find that a lot of people choose and prefer online therapy, as well, for increased confidentiality and to decrease stigma of attending therapy.

Lastly, I believe that online therapy for older adults can be helpful in fostering independence and control over one’s mental health. While families are frequently involved in their loved-one's care (and encouraged!), online therapy may be one safe place where older adults may have their own time and space solely to themselves.

I believe that therapy is the most effective and beneficial for my clients when the client and the therapist both agree to hold space for safety, honesty, integrity, open-mindedness, and hope. With this in mind, I approach all my therapy sessions with kindness, curiosity, encouragement, safety, honesty, integrity, open-mindedness, and hope. I also commit to being up to date on research, knowledge, treatments, and interventions that work, in order to provide the best services and outcomes for my clients.

My treatment philosophy is to help older adults and families reach their highest quality of life, love, and potential through increased psychological awareness, skills, and flexibility. The treatments I utilize are rooted in science and clinical research, while also considering my clients’ individual differences. As such, I use a variety of therapeutic theories and interventions, and I rely heavily on clients’ personal experiences and their experiential learning (what they already know and their willingness to learn and try new things). Approaches to treatment that I primarily utilize are Solution-Focused Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Mindfulness, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Reminiscent Therapy, Narrative Therapy, and Exposure-Based Therapies for Trauma.

What inspired me to become a therapist was my fascination with learning theory and social psychology. I actually started my undergraduate studies as an International Relations and Diplomacy Major, and I quickly realized that I was not cut-out for a career in politics.

I was fortunate enough to attend my very first Psychology course as a freshman in college and I was so intrigued by the different theories about why humans do the things that they do at different stages of life, that I knew during this class that this is what I wanted to pursue as a career.

I began seeking opportunities to learn and train with psychologists and social workers that were working with children and families teaching social skills because I knew these patterns of learning and socialization began at a very early age.

Children and families were seeing remarkable changes in school, peer relationships, home, and socializing with me and other professionals; and this had a profound impact on me.

I have worked with all ages, intellectual abilities, and mental health-related concerns; and at the end of the day, everyone- absolutely everyone- is capable of learning something new in order to gain something beautiful, rewarding, and life-changing.

I am honored to be a part of this, and to have found my place in this field helping others to do the same.

My advice to someone starting therapy for the first time is: “thank you for being brave and courageous to try something new.” (More of a statement than advice, I suppose.) Therapy is here for you. We talk about and work on goals that you want to talk about and work on.

It is not meant to be “scary” or “overwhelming” or “make you cry.” You are not “broken” or “unfixable” or “crazy” or any other stereotype you may have heard or seen before about therapy and people who go to therapy. Therapy is unique and personal. It is kind, welcoming, encouraging, hopeful, and rewarding.

It exists to help people pursue valuable changes in their mental health and well-being. Therapy can be challenging or difficult at times, and that is because change is sometimes hard work! Even so, please remember you are always, always worth it!

I wish more people knew that therapy works! It helps with so many things: from mood, to trauma, to relationships, to behaviors, to decision-making, to personal improvement, to grief and grieving, to chronic pain, to sleep, to learning new perspectives and approaches to situations in every-day life.

I also wish more people knew that therapy is very intentional- that it provides people with the time, space, and expertise to help them work toward specific, mental health-related goals.

Talk therapy has a starting point and an ending point (like most other types of therapies), and it works because you and your provider will identify goals that will lead you to feeling better emotionally, mentally, socially, behaviorally, and physically.

My advice to someone starting therapy for the first time is: “thank you for being brave and courageous to try something new.” (More of a statement than advice, I suppose.) Therapy is here for you.

Fun fact about me is that I love pickleball! I grew up playing competitive tennis, and now I have completely switched to pickleball. My tennis-loving friends are disappointed in me, but it is much easier to find folks willing to start a spontaneous game of pickleball these days than it is tennis. Plus, in my little-bit older and wiser age now, I appreciate the smaller court, smaller racquet, and less-bouncy ball.