I am the mother of a tween and teen. In my personal life, I use daily the mindfulness, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness skills I introduce to my clients and their families in therapy.
Before I became a mother, I had my own share of exploration and adventure. As a PhD student, I spent a year in Paris studying philosophy and film, and speaking French, which didn't always go well. On three different occasions, I lived in Germany, where I attended Documenta, a fascinating contemporary art exhibition, and the international film festival The Berlinale. Through my own exploration as a teen and young adult, a phrase that has become deeply meaningful to me is “Let me fall, if I must fall. The one I'm becoming will catch me.”
Before becoming a therapist, I earned a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Washington Seattle, where I subsequently taught undergraduate courses in visual culture, cinema studies, storytelling, and philosophy. I've carried my fascination for telling stories through pictures (and graphic novels in particular) into the therapy space.
I believe that the stories we love speak about the feelings we carry and the values we hold. This is why in therapy sessions I use imaginary characters and worlds from graphic novels to help my young clients explore situations and emotions with which they are grappling.
Now that I'm settled down, I enjoy writing to my Japanese and Australian pen-pals, playing board games, reading graphic novels, baking, and jewelry making. I love collecting art cards from around the world.
In addition to English, I speak German and Bulgarian, the latter being my first language.
My training as a therapist included a 10-month specialized practicum in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). In addition to focused training in evidence-based protocols for treating emotional disorders in children and adolescents, I have had over 100 hours of training in DBT and over 200 hours using DBT with adolescent clients and their families. With my clients, I use the following treatment modalities:
- Motivational Interviewing for teens' values & goals
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Unified Protocols for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders in Children and Teens (UP-C/A)
- Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS)
- Gender-affirming DBT & CBT for LGBTQ+ youth
- Evidence-based parent & caregiver coaching
Visual Storytelling as a Bridge
Have you ever read a graphic novel and thought, that character gets it?
Visual storytelling, the kind found in graphic novels, externalizes emotion in a way that words alone sometimes can't. When you see Anya standing alone in the dark desert with her lantern, you feel her loneliness without her having to explain it. When you watch Rex get his glasses knocked off his face for the third time and still put them back on, you understand something about resilience that a clinical definition never could. In our sessions, I may use characters, stories, and images as a way in, a less threatening starting point for conversations about your own experiences.