I was born and raised in Columbia, South Carolina, before earning my B.A. from the University of South Carolina and my Psy. D. from George Washington University, where I was dually enrolled in GWU’s LGBTQ Health and Policy Program. After graduating, I worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Therapy Group DC. As a doctoral student, I worked at The Center Clinic, helping socioeconomically-challenged patients from all walks of life. I completed my APA accredited internship at the University of Illinois at Chicago where I worked at UIC’s Student Counseling Office, which serves one of the most diverse student bodies in the country. My experience has helped me provide care for LBGTQIA+ community members, BIPOC patients, trauma survivors, and anyone looking to find ways of transcending pain to live fulfilling lives.

My education and training have allowed me the wonderful opportunity to work with clients of different cultures and backgrounds. As a member of the LGBTQIA+ community myself (queer, questioning, fluid), I have a specific love for working with clients from the LGBTQIA+ community, specifically those that identify as non-binary and Trans+. I enjoy working with teens and young adults who are discovering their identities for the first time but also enjoy working with older adults coming out later in life. As an individual with a chronic pain condition, I also understand how the body can hold traumas and betray us at times and I work to connect and understand each patient’s disability or pain condition in its uniqueness to them as they navigate life a little differently than others may have to.
My training during internship afforded me the opportunity to work with individuals from many different backgrounds and cultures. I find intersectionality work to be particularly rewarding as race, culture, gender, ect. are unique to each individual and discovering self-identities can be such a challenging but rewarding journey for each individual. I enjoy getting to know each patient I work with and watching them grow on their personal journeys’. This is a gift I consider to be part of our profession. I became a psychologist because I believe deeply in the transformative impact of therapy because I have witnessed first-hand just how life-changing it can be.

By working with me you will get to learn more about yourself and your identities, but also learn about those around you and bring more understanding about the relationships that you hold in your life and the meaning these relationships have. As someone who grew up in a strict Southern Baptist household, I also understand how religion and strict upbringings can impact internal models of thinking and will work with you to uncover these internalized models so that you can decide which messages you would like to keep in your value systems and which messages you would like to replace with more positive ones. This work can be challenging at times but it is my belief that it is worth it as we all strive to become better versions of ourselves.
I have an intense passion for understanding personal identity and the way race, culture, class, and sexuality come together to form what we believe about ourselves and what we feel we can accomplish in our lives personally and professionally. It is my belief that our identities, both what we show the world and who we are on the inside, are a mosaic of memory and experience that begins in early childhood and continues throughout our lives.
In a therapeutic relationship, we can uncover the patterns of behavior that are a result of these experiences while we differentiate between behaviors that serve us and behaviors that hinder us. Oppression and racial injustice shape our internal and external world and I believe addressing and speaking to differences is a powerful tool to help anyone seeking counseling. Through the power of connection and communication, we can heal old wounds and face moments of pain together as we seek to accomplish any goals you may have set for yourself when you decided to seek therapy.

My educational background is steeped in psychodynamic theory, identifying patterns from childhood, and working to break through harmful paradigms. However, I am dedicated to meeting my clients where they are, and I can bring a number of therapeutic modalities into our sessions, including Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Trauma Based Approaches, Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT). These varied interventions have proven invaluable to my psychotherapeutic work and have shown me the importance of a flexible, multidisciplinary approach.