I started working in the field of trauma and traumatic stress while I was in graduate school for my Master’s, beginning in 2011. While living in Kentucky (my home state), I went from rape crisis counseling, to working with children in school settings, to therapeutic foster care, and back to rape crisis/intimate partner violence work with cisgender women, children, and LGBTQIA+ folks. In 2017, I left my old Kentucky home to relocate to the upper Ohio Valley, where I continued to focus my clinical work on traumatic experiences, co-occurring substance use disorders, women’s mental health concerns, and completed Basic Training (and later certification) in EMDR therapy.

I finished my PhD in Counselor Education & Supervision in December of 2018, and officially added “counselor educator” to my list of qualifications. I also had acquired a host of chronic health conditions to learn how to navigate, and learned about their link to traumatic stress. In the summer of 2021, I left clinical work “full-time” to be a counselor educator full-time, started working on becoming an Approved Consultant in EMDR therapy, and became a fully remote psychotherapist.

Then, I became a mama, and my whole world turned upside down. After my own traumatic birthing experience, I started to realize that I was struggling with hyperarousal, shame, and severe anxiety because of this event. At the time, I had been specializing in trauma & traumatic stress for nearly 10 years, but it took my own lived experience to realize just how different a traumatic birth can be. What’s more, I noticed that my baby was what some folks have termed “high needs,” and I wondered how much of this was due to her memories of her birth, being unable to engage in skin-to-skin care until hours after birth, and her little body holding onto all that traumatic stress.

In 2022, I began to focus my career, continuing education, and research on perinatal mental health, reproductive trauma, mental health concerns related to body feeding/lactation, and women's/AFAB’s mental health including neurodivergence, traumatic experiences, premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), matrescence, perimenopause/menopause, sexuality, chronic health conditions/autoimmune disorders, LGBTQIA+ families, polyamory/ethical non-monogamy, psychedelic-assisted therapy, and EMDR therapy.

I welcome and value the unique intersectionalities that every person brings to parenthood. I have received specialized training in working with neurodivergent families, LGBTQIA+ families, and polyamory/ethical non-monogamy.

Owner, Counselor (she/they)

Welcome! I’m so glad you’re here.

My Background: