Registered Psychotherapist
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703 Walnut Street | Boulder, CO 80302 | 203.536.0813
QUICK LINKS: | Adult Psychotherapy | Music Industry Pros | College Students | Life-Changing Illness |
life-changing illness
Coping with illness is a unique experience; it has the potential to radically change the way you relate to life - spiritually, emotionally, & physically. I respect how challenging it is to both accept the reality of what is happening and to try and find peace within yourself when so many things are uncertain.
My approach with clients reflects the belief my role in your journey with serious illness is primarily a role of assistance. This means that I view the therapeutic process as a process of collaboration. We will work together to create your ideal space for building the safety, trust, and empathy you will need to feel supported in the work of confronting the kinds of deep questions often brought to the forefront of our experience when we make contact with serious illness.
Our sessions will draw on my experience working with cancer survivors, my work with other people dealing with illness, my professional training, and my knowledge of evidence-based interventions. My expertise will guide the therapeutic process in ways that present opportunities for you to acquire new skills for coping with your illness, and for understanding yourself on a deep level.
But at the end of the day, YOU are the one in charge of leading the pace and direction of therapy. I promise to never lose sight of the fact that each person’s journey with illness is uniquely their own. In our work together, I will never let my training, knowledge, or experiences with other clients cloud my understanding that the purpose of your task is to find your OWN way of relating to your experience. I promise to respect that you are the only one who can decide if and when you choose to make meaning from your illness, and in the case that you do, what that meaning should look like.
As you ride the wave of emotions, I will provide a nonjudgmental space that honors the mix of grief, fear, anxiety, love, compassion, awe, and anger that might accompany our work together. I will support and assist you, gently holding whatever parts of self you may meet in our sessions. I consider it an honor to be with clients on their unique journeys with illness - not just my clients who hold the diagnoses, but any member of a relational system affected by the diagnosis of a loved one who comes to me door.
As a therapist, seeing clients with life-changing illness is rewarding and challenging. It's an unusual area of specialty, and it requires the kind of clinician who can stay regulated, understand your experience, and authentically be with you in your process as you confront the unique personal challenges that belong to the work. I feel that my own confrontation with serious illness has shaped me to be especially suited to being able to hold space for clients at a time that is deeply moving, uncertain, and transformational
In my practice, I often refer to life-changing illness as "transformational illness": a term that I feel better reflects an illness' hidden potential for making meaning and fostering personal growth. You can read more about my personal experience below.
my journey with life-changing illness
My personal experience with transformational illness began in 2014 while I was working as the legal staffing manager at a boutique staffing agency in Midtown Manhattan. While walking to my office from Grand Central Station, I suddenly lost sensation in my legs and became unable to walk.
I didn't know it at the time but I had contracted a virus that was making me partially paralyzed from the waist down. I was forced to go on medical leave as doctors struggled for 8 weeks to identify the cause of sudden paralysis in my legs. I remember what it was like to be scared, knowing that something was happening in my body but not yet knowing what it was or what it might mean for my health. I felt alone. I remember finding myself in the kind of existential limbo that reveals to you just how precarious life is, and that pressed me to redefine the things I considered to be really important: a task I had neither asked for, nor wanted. Though ultimately meaningful, I remember what it was like to be confronted with unexpected anxiety, grief, and anger. In the stress of uncertainty, I struggled to accept the randomness of life, to find meaning in what was happening to my body, to make peace with new limitations, and to cope with the fear that, at 28, I might have to accept the reality of life lived from a wheelchair.
For better or for worse, my experience with this illness ended up being temporary; at ten weeks, my immune system had made enough antibodies for full recovery, and I regained sensation in my legs and muscle functioning.
I will never forget the indelible mark the experience left on me. Viral paralysis allowed me to confront the parts of myself that I didn't yet love, to redefine myself with a greater appreciation for authentic self-awareness, and ultimately changed the direction of my life by inspiring me to leave New York to pursue a Master’s Degree in Counseling.
I was humbled; I did not walk away with a misguided belief that my experience would inform me of the unique facets, concerns, and personal challenges that my future clients might struggle with in their own experience coping with illness. Instead, it informed my approach to therapy by affirming the importance of remembering that each person’s journey is truly unique.