Therapeutic ApproachI am a therapist practicing at the edges of the systems that trained me.
Over time, I have come to understand that much of what passes as healing within dominant therapeutic culture is deeply shaped by the same structures that produce suffering in the first place: colonialism, capitalism, individualism, professional hierarchy, and the belief that distress can be understood apart from the world that creates it. My work is rooted in the understanding that people do not suffer in isolation. What we often call anxiety, depression, burnout, trauma, relational struggle, or emotional overwhelm cannot always be understood as individual pathology. These experiences are often deeply connected to family systems, histories of displacement, political violence, community fragmentation, systemic oppression, loss of belonging, and the conditions under which we have been forced to survive. I do not believe healing begins with diagnosis. I do not believe the therapist is the expert who fixes what is broken. I do not believe care can be reduced to techniques, standardized interventions, symptom management, or one-hour sessions designed primarily to satisfy institutional requirements. Instead, I understand healing as something that happens through relationship. Healing happens through being witnessed. Through community. Through safety that emerges from trust rather than authority. Through connection to culture, ancestry, land, ritual, collective care, and relationships where we do not need to abandon ourselves in order to belong. I practice from the belief that distress often makes sense. Sometimes what appears to be suffering is not dysfunction inside an individual, but an intelligent response to living inside oppressive systems that disconnect people from community, dignity, meaning, and reciprocal care. My role is not to position myself above the people I work with. I see myself not as an expert, but as a companion, facilitator, witness, and participant in creating conditions where healing becomes possible. I draw from psychotherapy, somatic work, liberation psychology, anti-oppressive practice, community-based healing traditions, and relational approaches, while also honoring forms of healing that existed long before modern psychology claimed authority over human suffering. I am deeply interested in healing practices that move beyond individual treatment models and toward collective care. This includes community healing spaces, shared witnessing, mutual aid, land-based healing, embodied practices, interdependence, cultural memory, and ways of being together that challenge isolation and return people to belonging. I believe care should never require the abandonment of political consciousness. I believe neutrality in the face of oppression is not neutrality. I believe healing cannot be separated from liberation. I am interested in helping people not simply adapt to harmful systems, but reconnect with themselves, their communities, and ways of living that feel more aligned with dignity, reciprocity, and collective wellbeing. I am part of a growing movement of practitioners asking a deeper question: What if our work is not to help people fit into systems that harm them -- but to help imagine entirely different ways of being human together? I believe healing belongs to community. And I believe we are only beginning to remember what that means. My passion is guiding people to discover who they really are, beyond thoughts and judgments about themselves. My work is a unique combination of western therapeutic approaches, research based neuroscience infused therapy, and Mama Earth Based wisdom from both my Slavic ancestors and my Siberian ancestors in the Altai Mountains.
Generally, I use the following modalities when working with people:
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