I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice in Fresno, California. I work with individuals, couples, and families, both in person and through telehealth.

I tend to think of therapy less as a place where people come to be “fixed,” and more as a place where things can finally be looked at carefully. Many of the struggles people bring to therapy are not random, and they are not evidence that something is wrong with them at the core. Often, they are old patterns that once served a purpose: ways of staying connected, avoiding shame, keeping peace, managing fear, or holding everything together when there did not seem to be another option.

Over time, those same strategies can become costly. They can show up as anxiety, depression, conflict, emotional overwhelm, withdrawal, resentment, guilt, shame, or the feeling of being caught in the same conversation with yourself or someone else again and again.

My work is relational, direct, and emotionally attentive. I try to help people slow down enough to notice what is actually happening: the pattern, the fear underneath it, the protective move, the old rule, the repeated argument, the silence, the part that keeps trying to survive. From there, therapy becomes a place to understand the pattern without being ruled by it.

I draw from family systems, attachment-based work, emotionally focused therapy, CBT, DBT, and trauma-informed care. But the work is not mainly about techniques. It is about developing enough clarity, steadiness, and honesty to take the next real step — in yourself, in your relationships, and in the life you are trying to live.

I also believe that people sometimes need more than clinical language. They may need image, story, metaphor, humor, or a gentler way of approaching something that has felt too large or too fixed. My writing project, The Lantern Road, comes from that part of the work: the belief that good therapy can help a person come back to actual size.

Therapy with me is usually thoughtful, conversational, and direct. I listen closely, but I also help us name the pattern we are seeing. I am interested in what people do when they are scared, ashamed, overwhelmed, trying to stay connected, trying not to need too much, or trying to keep everything from falling apart.

I do not approach therapy as a place where I simply give advice or tell people what to do. I see it more as a place where we slow things down enough to understand what is happening, what it has cost, and what a more honest next step might look like.

Sometimes that means looking at a relationship pattern. Sometimes it means working with anxiety, depression, grief, shame, anger, avoidance, or emotional overwhelm. Sometimes it means noticing an old survival strategy that made sense at one time, but is no longer helping in the same way.

Who I Work With

I work with adults, couples, and families. People often come to me for support with anxiety, depression, relationship distress, family conflict, parenting stress, shame, grief, emotional overwhelm, life transitions, and trauma-related patterns.

I see clients in person in Fresno and by telehealth when appropriate. My work often includes helping people communicate more clearly, understand repeated relational cycles, set boundaries, repair after conflict, and develop a steadier relationship with themselves and others.

I may be a good fit for people who want therapy that is reflective, relational, and emotionally serious, but still practical. I tend to work well with people who are interested in understanding patterns, improving communication, reducing shame, and making changes that are honest rather than performative.

I may not be the best fit if you are looking only for quick advice, a highly scripted program, or someone to simply take one person’s side in a relational conflict. In couples and family work, I am usually most interested in the pattern people are caught in, rather than deciding that one person is the entire problem.