Therapy and assessments have been developed in the Western world and do not adequately take into account different cultures and perspectives. As such, I strive to understand all clients within their broad cultural context (i.e., family, ethnicity, gender, work/professional, sexuality, developmental stage, generational, educational, religious, disability, and immigration and socioeconomic status) and societal systems and work from that starting point to devise ways to help them. In therapy, I believe that people are not their problems and that every person has unique strengths that can help them take control of their lives. Therefore, I use a strength-based approach in therapy and collaboratively work with clients to develop a treatment plan that works for them.

After a full understanding of each client’s culture and history of the problem, different options are provided for treatment of their presenting concerns (i.e., different modalities that could work like CBT or humanistic or EMDR), which are collaboratively chosen with myself and the client. For assessments, I strive to cautiously interpret tests recognizing their limitations with culturally and linguistically diverse clients. I also emphasize that people are not test scores and interpret assessments within the whole context of a client’s life.

I want my clients to leave therapy feeling understood and validated. Through this base of being heard and understood, clients learn to focus on and leverage their strengths, as well as learn new strategies to help them not only cope with but strive in their life. Clients leave feeling less anxious and sad, and more equipped to handle all that life has to throw at them. After an assessment, clients leave feeling like they have a much better sense of their strengths and weaknesses and how they can leverage their strengths to help them at school or work.