Specializations
Areas of Focus
Trauma and Complex Trauma
Anxiety and Depression
Life changes and transitions
Grief in all its forms
Addictive processes and patterns
Relationship challenges
Approaches We Can Use
Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy
Art Therapy
Talk Therapy
Integrated perspectives from neuroscience, somatic, or mindfulness practices
It’s not what’s wrong with you, but what has happened to you.
Clients often reach out for support with
Trauma and complex trauma stemming from difficult childhoods, relational ruptures, and emotional wounds
Emotional distress including anxiety and depression
Navigating life changes and transitions
Grief and loss in all its forms
Addictive processes and patterns
Relationship challenges
LGBTQIA+ issues
Generational trauma
Legacy and cultural burdens
Does any of this sound familiar?
Wounds
(what you experienced or didn’t receive)
trauma, verbal abuse or criticism, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, not safe, unmet emotional or physical needs, invisible, overlooked, misunderstood, abandonment, betrayal, bullying
Patterns
(protective strategies
to cope)
fear and worry, inner critics, people-pleasing, caretaking, overextending yourself, indecision, doubt, numbing out, distracting, comfort eating, substance or alcohol use, anger or reactivity
Impacts
(the cost of difficult experiences)
overwhelm, hypervigilance, stuck patterns of behavior, self-doubt, isolation, hopelessness, despair, withdrawing, avoidance, self-sabotage, sleep issues, chronic pain and illness
Beliefs
(shame and burdens
that you carry)
too much, not enough, unlovable,
I don’t matter, I’m a burden, abandoned, alone, worthless, bad, wrong, undeserving, incapable, incompetent, failure
No longer getting stuck in old patterns of behavior or reactivity
Experiencing more energy and presence in your life
Increased awareness, self-compassion, clarity, and perspective
Navigating life with more energy, confidence, and spaciousness
Trusting in yourself and your capacities
Less indecision or second-guessing yourself
Confidence in setting healthy boundaries and communicating your needs
Creating more fulfilling relationships and connections with others
Greater sense of identity, purpose, meaning
What’s possible on the other side
Healing is possible. You are not broken and deserve to experience self-compassion, ease, and connectedness to self and others.
Internal Family Systems
IFS is an evidence-based and non-pathologizing approach that is gentle, welcoming of all parts and identities, and can create lasting change.
IFS honors all parts of us as humans, no matter our experiences, backgrounds, or goals for therapy. It addresses cultural and legacy burdens that span generations, and is uniquely tailored to each individual and their circumstances.
So often, people spend most of their lives feeling like they are too much, not enough, broken, worthless, unlovable—the list goes on. We may have gathered those messages from personal experiences and society. Many times, the ways we compensate for that internal pain includes harsh inner critics, striving to be loved and accepted through people-pleasing or rescuing others, or soothing and numbing behaviors that take us away from painful emotions and beliefs. And yet, lasting change is possible through getting to know these various parts of you, and learning to access your Self—a wise and healing inner essence that cannot be broken or damaged.
Visit the IFS Institute to learn more.
Self possesses qualities that can guide both your internal world and external life, much like an orchestra conductor leads a symphony.
Most of my clients come to me having already tried other forms of therapy, saying it was helpful to a point, but often not quite enough to move beyond coping tools and an intellectual understanding of their issues.
For so many, the Internal Family Systems model of therapy offers the help they were seeking.
What does an IFS session look like?
Noticing patterns of activation in your daily life and interactions
Identifying parts of you that show up in certain situations
Exploring what you do or say in response to those activations
Getting curious…
Bringing perspective to an inner jumble of emotions and reactions
Differentiating parts and understanding dynamics among those parts
Identifying and working with inner polarizations
Externalizing…
Dropping your attention inward to befriend parts
Discovering protector’s roles and positive intentions
Healing the vulnerable, tender, wounded parts of you
Inner work…
Reclaiming gifts, capacities, and qualities that were lost to trauma and protection
Inner spaciousness and perspective in creating a life of choice and intention
Trusting in your ability to navigate new challenges
Self-leadership…
Art Therapy
We live in a culture of productivity and rush. The parts of us that want to fix and solve our problems will keep us in the cognitive realm, thinking or hoping that it is the key to unlocking the issues we are facing. That only gets us so far.
So much of what brings clients to therapy lives in the sensory, somatic, and emotional realms. Art therapy helps us access other ways of knowing, and come to new insights by connecting and being with the issue in different ways than if we stayed elevated in the cognitive realm.
“Art is a vehicle that allows us to transcend linear time, to travel backward and forward into personal and transpersonal history, into possibilities that weren’t realized and those that might be.”
via American Art Therapy Association:
Art therapy is an integrative mental health and human services profession that enriches the lives of individuals, families, and communities through active art-making, creative process, applied psychological theory, and human experience within a psychotherapeutic relationship.
Art therapy, facilitated by a professional art therapist, effectively supports personal and relational treatment goals as well as community concerns. Art therapy is used to improve cognitive and sensorimotor functions, foster self-esteem and self-awareness, cultivate emotional resilience, promote insight, enhance social skills, reduce and resolve conflicts and distress, and advance societal and ecological change.
One of the biggest misconceptions is that one must be an artist or possess some skill in art in order to engage in art therapy. The truth is that it’s about process over product. The art serves as a container for the material that is being explored in therapy. It does not matter what it looks like on the page.
What is Art Therapy?
If it makes sense in our work together, art therapy can support your goals through creativity, externalization of challenges or experiences, and by mapping and getting to know parts of your internal system in IFS.
No art skill or training is necessary.
These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.
— NAJWA ZEBIAN