Therapy Approach
My Approach to Sex Addiction & Relationship Therapy
My approach is integrative and individualized. Rather than using one therapeutic model for every client, I consider the behavioral patterns, emotional experiences, relationships, attachment patterns, trauma history, and goals that may be relevant to each person.
My process and approach includes:
CSAT-informed treatment
As a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist (CSAT), I use a structured approach to help clients understand and change patterns of compulsive sexual behavior. Treatment may include identifying triggers, understanding the addiction cycle, establishing boundaries and sobriety goals, developing relapse-prevention strategies, addressing shame and secrecy, exploring underlying emotional and attachment patterns, and building healthier sexuality and intimacy.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a structured, goal-focused type of talk therapy that helps someone connect how their thoughts, feelings, and actions/behaviors influence each other. The goal of CBT is to change and recognize unhelpful and inaccurate thinking patterns, which can help with changing how you feel and how you then in turn react and vice versa.
Mindfulness and emotional regulation
This therapy process is a mental health approach that uses present-moment awareness to help people notice, accept, and manage intense feelings without reacting impulsively. This can be especially helpful with anxiety and addiction work.
What is Mindfulness?
Present focus
Paying attention to what is happening right now.
No judgment
Observing thoughts and body sensations without labeling them as good or bad.
The pause
Creating a small gap between an event and your reaction
What is Emotional Regulation?
Recognition
Identifying what emotion you feel and where you feel it in your body
Understanding
Knowing why a trigger caused a specific reaction
Management
Choosing a healthy response instead of hiding or exploding from stress
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
EMDR is a structured psychotherapy approach used to help people process distressing or traumatic experiences. When appropriate, EMDR may be incorporated into treatment to reduce the emotional intensity associated with painful memories, beliefs, triggers, and experiences that continue to affect you in the present.
Key uses:
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Anxiety and panic attacks
Depression
Grief and loss
Attachment-informed therapy
Using this modality we will explore how early childhood relationships with your primary caregivers shape your emotional patterns, trust levels, and connection styles in your adult life.
Relapse prevention
This therapy approach helps individuals maintain long-term recovery from substance use or addictive behaviors by anticipating high-risk situations and building practical coping skills.
Internal Family Systems (IFS)-informed work
IFS informed work is talk therapy that views the mind as a family made up of an indeterminate number of different sub-personalities, or “parts,” guided by a healthy core “Self”.
Relationship and couples work
This is a form of focused therapy where two partners work to improve communication, resolve conflicts, and strengthen their emotional connection.