Types of Therapy
If you've been searching for a therapist, you've probably come across a bunch of acronyms for different types of therapy, most likely CBT, EMDR, DBT, and more. It can be confusing, even for therapists sometimes! The good news is that you don't necessarily need to know which type of therapy is "right" for you. We can figure that out together. If you would like to do some learning on your own, click here.
During the early stages of treatment, we'll work together to understand what you're experiencing, how it is persisting, and why. We'll explore the biological, psychological, social, and environmental factors contributing to your symptoms and use that information to guide our work.
Sometimes the best therapeutic approach is clear from the start. Other times, it takes time to fully understand what's going on. Mental health is complex, and even conditions that look similar on the surface can be maintained by different underlying processes.
For example, generalized anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder can both involve anxiety, difficulty with uncertainty, and repetitive thinking patterns. However, research suggests these conditions are often maintained by different psychological and neurobiological processes and therefore may respond best to different evidence-based interventions.
Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach, I tailor treatment to the processes maintaining your symptoms and choose interventions supported by research. Your feedback throughout therapy is an important part of this process and helps us adjust treatment as we learn more.
Curious about the science behind anxiety and OCD?
Learn how the brain's "alarm system" and "thinking system" contribute to different conditions, and why different treatments work.→ Learn More
My Therapeutic Approaches
The following approaches serve as the primary framework for our work. I also draw from other evidence-based methods when appropriate, so the work stays aligned with your specific patterns and goals.
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Evidence-Based For
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
I-CBT addresses inferential confusion, which is the reasoning process through which imagined possibilities begin to feel more meaningful or trustworthy than what you know through direct experience and your senses. This process creates obsessional doubt, which drives OCD.
Rather than focusing primarily on “Is this fear realistic?” I-CBT asks, “How did my mind arrive at this doubt in the first place?”
Treatment helps you recognize when OCD has pulled you away from reality based reasoning and into possibility based reasoning, or the world of “what if...?” From there, you learn to reconnect with your senses, direct experience, and ordinary reasoning, reducing the obsessional doubt that drives compulsive behavior.
Click here to learn more.
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Evidence-Based for
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Specific Phobias
Panic Disorder
Social Anxiety Disorder
Exposure-based therapy is a behavioral approach used to treat OCD and other anxiety-related disorders. It involves intentionally and gradually approaching feared thoughts, situations, sensations, or uncertainty rather than responding through avoidance or other behaviors that reinforce fear.
Exposure is based on new learning. The goal isn't simply to make anxiety go away. Instead, exposure creates opportunities to learn that feared experiences can be approached and tolerated without relying on the same strategies that have kept the fear cycle going.
For OCD, exposure-based work may also involve reducing compulsive responses such as checking, reassurance-seeking, avoidance, reviewing, or other rituals. Over time, this can weaken the connection between perceived threat and compulsive behavior while building greater flexibility in responding to fear and uncertainty.
Exposure work is collaborative and individualized. We work together to determine what feels clinically appropriate, with the goal of helping you spend less time organizing your life around fear and more time engaging in the things that matter to you.
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Evidence-Based For
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Social Anxiety Disorder
Panic Disorder
Specific Phobias
Depression
Insomnia (CBT-I)
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is an umbrella of evidence-based therapies based on the understanding that cognition (how we think), emotion (how we feel), physiology (how our bodies respond), and behavior (what we do) continuously influence one another.
For many anxiety disorders, CBT targets maladaptive cognitive patterns (unhelpful thinking habits), behavioral avoidance (staying away from situations that trigger anxiety), and safety behaviors (things we do to temporarily feel safer, but that unintentionally maintain anxiety).
Treatment may include identifying cognitive distortions (thinking errors), testing predictions through behavioral experiments (real-life opportunities to gather evidence), and gradually building confidence in your ability to tolerate uncertainty and discomfort.
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Evidence-Based For
Anxiety Disorders
Depression
OCD (adjunctive)
Chronic Pain
Health Anxiety
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is based on increasing psychological flexibility (the ability to experience difficult thoughts and emotions while continuing to act in ways that reflect your values).
Rather than trying to eliminate unwanted internal experiences, ACT teaches acceptance (making room for thoughts and feelings without fighting them), cognitive defusion (learning to see thoughts as thoughts rather than facts), mindfulness (bringing attention to the present moment), and values-guided action (choosing behaviors based on what matters most rather than what anxiety demands).
The goal is not to eliminate discomfort, but to reduce its influence over your life.
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Additional evidence-based methods may be incorporated as needed, based on your specific patterns and goals.
This may include elements of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Motivational Interviewing (MI), or narrative-based work—supporting areas such as emotion regulation, motivation, and how you make sense of your experiences.
One of my commitments as a therapist is to continue learning throughout my career. As I pursue additional specialized training, I'll thoughtfully integrate new evidence-based approaches when they align with my practice and update this page to reflect those additions.