Maybe this sounds familiar
You might be here because:
You feel overwhelmed - by school, by work, relationships, expectations, or by the volume of everything all at once. Overwhelm is not a character flaw. It's an experience that can be learned to manage.
You suspect you may have a diagnosis - Perhaps you have always suspected your experience of the world around you is different from others. Or you have been recently diagnosed, and you are wondering "what does this mean for me?" We'll explore what a diagnosis means, how your brain works, and how to use this knowledge to improve quality of life and functioning.
Someone's telling you something is "wrong" but that doesn't make sense to you - What they tell you and what you experience do not match. The gap is what we will explore - not because something is broken, but because there are multiple stories to understand.
Your strategies are not working. - The skills you use do not match this moment in your life. Old skills no longer fit and need to be adapted, or maybe things have never felt so hard before. We'll reflect on what has worked in the past and experiment with new skills to match this moment.
You can tell people around you are stressed, but you're not sure what you're doing "wrong" or how to do it the "right" way - Often this isn't about wrongdoing at all. It's a mismatch between how your brain works and what the world around you expects. We can name that disconnect clearly, without shame.
You're not really sure why you're here - Maybe a parent, teacher, or friend suggested it. You don't fully see what they see, and that's okay. Building understanding is part of our work together.
Who I Work With
I work with teens and adults navigating ADHD, anxiety, autism spectrum experiences, executive functioning challenges, and difficulty with perspective-taking — often for the first time, and often after someone else noticed it before they did. I work with clients in Maryland and Washington State.
Teens Figuring Out Who They Are
Commonly involves: ADHD, anxiety, autism spectrum traits, executive functioning challenges
Caregivers want to support their teen without pushing too hard, and finding that line is hard. Teens feel pressure too, just from the other side: pressure to perform, uncertainty about what comes next, and the complex mix of joy, confusion, and frustration that comes with friendships. Underneath it all is a want for real independence, the sense that they can manage their own life, not just be managed. I help teens by working at their pace to build the skills and self-understanding that make that possible.
Adults Newly Understanding Themselves
Commonly involves: ADHD, autism spectrum diagnoses, anxiety, executive functioning challenges
Many adults arrive here after a diagnosis, sometimes their own realization, sometimes someone else's observation, that reframes a lifetime of experiences. That can be clarifying and disorienting at once. I help you make sense of what the label does and doesn't explain, and what to do with that understanding.
Adjusting to a New Reality
Commonly involves: burnout, executive functioning challenges, anxiety, major life or role transitions
Everything was manageable until it wasn't. Maybe it was burnout, a life transition, or a role that changed faster than your coping strategies did. What worked in one chapter doesn't always carry into the next, and that's not a personal failure, it's just a mismatch between old tools and a new situation. I help clients understand what changed, and rebuild from what's still working rather than starting over from scratch.
Misreading the Room
Commonly involves: autism spectrum traits, social communication differences, perspective-taking challenges, relationship or workplace conflict
Sometimes a moment lands completely differently than it was intended, and neither side can quite figure out why. For teens, this might look like frustration with peers whose behavior seems confusing or unfair, alongside a real desire to build friendships without knowing exactly how. For adults, it often shows up in a relationship or a workplace, where a comment or tone gets misread and both people end up frustrated without understanding the other's side. I help clients get clearer on their own perspective first, and build a better sense of how they're coming across to others, without asking anyone to become someone they're not.
You don't need a diagnosis, or even a clear reason, to reach out. If you're not sure whether this fits, that uncertainty is a completely valid place to start.
My Approach
You don't need fixing. You need understanding. I start from the assumption that you have a story, strengths, and strategies that already exist. Some are visible, some buried under stress, others may be masked or built to match the expectations of others. Our work is not about installing a fix. It's about helping you understand yourself to build a mindset that holds.
My approach pulls from a few traditions working together:
Strengths-based means we spend real time on what already works for you. We focus on your values, skills, and the things you're good at, even if everything feels like it's falling apart. This is the raw material we will use to help you adapt to this moment and into the future
Narrative therapy means I treat you as the expert on your own life. Diagnoses and other people's perspectives are part of the story, but certainly not the final word. We'll get curious about the story you tell yourself and where there is room to tell a truer, more useful one.
Tools in service of your story. I draw from CBT and other evidenced-based strategies because they can genuinely help. I think of these tools as part of a toolbelt. Handing someone a hammer doesn't make them a carpenter. What makes someone a carpenter is understanding the wood, the joint, and what they are trying to build. That way they know which tool to reach for and why, without needing support every time they face a new problem.
That's the difference between giving you a tool and you building your own process. Tools solve today's problem. A process, grounded in understanding yourself, helps you solve tomorrow's problems too, even when it looks completely different. This is why my approach does not focus on technique. We lead with your story and self-understanding and include tools like CBT when they genuinely fit. Not as the whole plan, but as part of a mindset that's adaptable and lasting.
What does treatment look like?
Every path looks a little different, but often treatment looks something like this
01
Getting Oriented
Before anything else, we slow down and take stock of where things actually stand, and the impact it's having on you and the people in your life.
02
Separating You from the Problem
This may include a diagnosis, which can act as a guide, a map built from others who've faced similar challenges. But you are not 'an anxious person' or 'a person with executive functioning issues.' You're a person who has a relationship with anxiety, or with attention, or with a nervous system that works differently.
03
Building on What Works
We'll look at strategies that already work for you, now or in the past, and get curious about why. From there, we'll revive what's faded or try something new. Some of what we try won't work, and that's expected. When that happens, we'll take it apart together and figure out what to try instead.
04
Progress, Not Perfection
Many people expect perfection from themselves and feel like a failure when they fall short. Instead, we focus on noticing improvement over time, rather than expecting performance without mistakes. Mistakes are feedback, not failure.
05
Ongoing Support, or Closure
Some people prefer to keep meeting for ongoing check-ins. Others feel ready to close this chapter. If circumstances change in the future, my door is always open.
"Mistakes are feedback, not failure"
About Me
Becoming a therapist wasn't my first career.It came after giving everything I could to teaching and burning out. That reset was followed by another one: getting diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. I went through my own journey trial and error to figure out what actually worked for me. That's why I help people find what fits them. There are no universal 'right' answers. Just a process for finding solutions to match the moment you're in right now.