Personal Philosophy of Change
We don’t change alone—but we also don’t change just because someone else tells us to. Real transformation happens in the tension between being seen by others and discovering new parts of ourselves.
At some point, we all carry beliefs about ourselves that feel absolute—patterns we can’t break, stories we’ve lived in for too long. These beliefs don’t just shift because someone says we’re “good” or “worthy.” Change happens when we engage with those beliefs, challenge them, and live in ways that make new stories possible.
Often, we need another person to help us see what we can’t yet see in ourselves. Not to hand us a truth but to walk with us while we find it. Someone who holds space for the hardest parts of us, not with judgment but with presence. Someone who helps us stay with the discomfort long enough for something new to emerge.
Change isn’t a straight line. It’s frustrating, slow, and sometimes feels impossible. But it happens—not all at once, and not in isolation. It happens in small moments of trust, in choices that feel just a little different than before, in learning to sit with uncertainty without running from it.
Methodologies and Theories Employed
Relational Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
Our work together will focus on the emerging relationship between us—how I experience you, how you experience me, and what this reveals about your historical patterns. These lived-out dynamics in our sessions become a window into how you’ve learned to relate to others, where old expectations might no longer serve you. By bringing conscious attention to these moments as they arise between us, we create opportunities to disrupt automatic responses and experiment with new ways of connecting. The goal isn’t just insight, but experiencing yourself differently in real time through our therapeutic relationship.
Attachment Theory
Your earliest bonds shaped your relational blueprint—the often unconscious expectations you carry about how connection “should” work. We’ll examine these ingrained patterns with curiosity, noticing how they show up in your current relationships and even here in our sessions. The work isn’t about blaming early caregivers, but developing self-compassion for how you adapted to your environment. From this place of understanding, we can explore what truly fits for you now, helping you move from reflexive reactions to chosen ways of engaging with others.
Neurodiversity-Affirming Practice
However your brain is wired—neurodivergent, highly sensitive, or elsewhere on the spectrum of neurocognitive styles—we’ll honor your unique way of processing the world. This means examining not just your internal experience, but how systems (social, professional, familial) have responded to your neurology throughout your life. Many clients arrive having internalized messages that they need to “fix” themselves to fit neurotypical standards. Our work involves disentangling your authentic self from these external demands, identifying accommodations that actually serve you, and reclaiming the strengths in how you’re wired.
Existential Psychotherapy
When grappling with mortality, freedom, isolation, or meaninglessness, this approach helps you confront life’s givens without turning away. Rather than offering easy answers, we’ll sit with the discomfort these realities evoke, discovering how your values and choices can shape a meaningful response. Many find this particularly potent during transitions—when old structures of belief or identity have dissolved but nothing solid has yet taken their place. The work isn’t about eliminating anxiety, but relating to it differently as we clarify what matters most to you amid life’s uncertainties.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
A structured therapy for trauma that uses bilateral stimulation to help the brain reprocess disturbing memories. Unlike traditional talk therapy, it focuses on sensory and somatic experience, allowing traumatic material to integrate with less verbal dissection. The process involves briefly accessing traumatic memories while simultaneously engaging in bilateral stimulation (typically eye movements), which appears to help the brain’s natural healing mechanisms. Many clients appreciate that EMDR doesn’t require extensively recounting traumatic details, yet still facilitates significant relief as the body’s alarm response to these memories diminishes.
Phase-Oriented Treatment for Dissociative Identity Disorder
This structured approach recognizes that healing from DID requires careful pacing and collaboration between all parts of the self. The first phase focuses on stabilization—building internal communication, establishing safety, and developing skills to manage daily life without fragmentation. Only when the system is ready do we gently approach trauma processing, often using adapted methods like EMDR or parts work to ensure no part feels overwhelmed. The final phase emphasizes integration not as an obligation but as a choice, where harmony between parts becomes more important than any predetermined outcome, allowing life to unfold beyond survival.
Lifespan Integration
This gentle method helps weave fragmented or traumatic experiences into your life’s coherent timeline. By revisiting memories—especially those that feel frozen or disjointed—while anchored in present-moment safety, your nervous system can begin recognizing that the past is no longer happening. We’ll work with your personal history chronologically, which often reveals how earlier events unconsciously influence current reactions. The repetition of moving through your timeline helps create new neural pathways, allowing you to relate to your history with less activation and more perspective.
Enneagram Personality Theory
Used as a tool rather than a label, the Enneagram maps core motivations behind behaviors—the “why” beneath what you do. We might reference your type’s particular stress/growth paths to deepen self-awareness, or explore how your type typically interacts with others in relationships. The system becomes most valuable when we hold it lightly, remembering that you’re always more complex than any categorization. When applied with this flexibility, many clients find it accelerates their ability to notice automatic patterns and make more conscious choices.
Theoretical and Philosophical Models
One of my passions is thinking deeply about personhood-how we are constituted and how we came to be constituted that way. I approach the therapeutic endeavor holding in mind that the way we experience ourselves and the world is shaped by a dynamic interplay of forces. Some of these pull us inward, helping us focus, reflect, and find stability. Others push us outward, encouraging growth, change, and connection. And beneath it all is a still, quiet potential—the space from which new thoughts, actions, and possibilities emerge. These fundamental movements shape how we perceive time, process information, and engage with life.
From this foundation, three key dimensions of personhood emerge: our physical and sensate self, our sense of self shaped by memory and experience, and our deeper motivations and capacity for abstract thought. Put more succinctly we are a dynamic interplay of body-emotion-thought. These dimensions are not separate but deeply interconnected, constantly influencing one another as we navigate our relationships, decisions, and personal growth. Our desires and drives, our evolving identity, and our imagination all emerge from this dynamic system, shaping how we respond to life’s challenges and opportunities.
This framework of thinking about personhood offers a way to understand personal growth and change. By recognizing the different forces at play within us, we can uncover the underlying patterns that shape our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. This awareness allows us to work with these patterns—rather than feeling stuck in them—creating space for healing, transformation, and a more authentic way of being. Whether in therapy or personal reflection, this approach allows for deepening self-understanding, navigating change, and restoring balance by addressing underlying patterns, strengthening weaker areas, and reconnecting parts of the self that may have become disconnected—creating the foundation for lasting, sustainable transformation.
This is a brief overview of a tripartite theory of personhood that continues to evolve as I work with individuals and explore the complexities of the human experience. For a more detailed exploration of these ideas visit my Reflections on Personhood page.