Coming home to yourself.
Individual therapy · 50 min · Boulder, Colorado and online
For people working alone with what they’re quietly carrying.
Where this work begins
Most adults who come to me have already done some talking. They’ve named patterns, sat with a competent therapist, possibly read the books. They can describe their attachment style at dinner.
And still — the same anxiety in the chest before a meeting. The same shutting-down in the middle of conflict. The same trouble sleeping the night before something hard. The same body that doesn’t quite trust the safety it cognitively knows is there.
Insight is not the same as integration. Your nervous system learned what was unsafe long before there were words for it, and it doesn’t change because you’ve now understood it intellectually. It changes when the body has a new sensory reality in the safety of a relationship that holds both presence and pace.
What can shift
Across the first 8–12 sessions, most clients name some combination of:
- Sleep that returns to the bottom of the body
- Less reactive in the moments that used to derail
- Pleasure without the old guilt-loop
- A wider window before the nervous system tips into fight, flight, or freeze
- A felt sense of the difference between “fine” and actually fine
- More capacity to stay in the body during conflict, intimacy, joy
These are not promises. Bodies and histories vary, and healing is rarely linear. They are what’s reasonable to expect when the work is fitting.
What we do in a session
Sessions are 50 minutes — first session and ongoing.
What happens depends on what your body brings into the room that day. Sometimes we mostly talk — but with frequent pauses to notice what the body is doing as you tell the story. Sometimes we move — small, large, fast, slow, whatever your nervous system asks for. Sometimes we sit very still, paying attention to breath, temperature, the places your attention keeps returning. Sometimes we use specific body-based exercises drawn from Sensorimotor Psychotherapy or dance/movement therapy traditions.
I follow what your nervous system is showing me, not a fixed protocol. The work moves at the pace of your body’s regulation, not the pace of my schedule. If something is too much, we titrate down. If something opens, we make room for it.
You don’t need to be a dancer. You don’t need to be flexible. You don’t need to know what you’re doing or where to start. You need to be willing to be in the room with what’s actually happening and curious about what your body might say.
The structure
Common questions
I’ve never done body-based therapy. Is this going to feel strange?
For most clients, the first session or two feels novel — the body has often been the unspoken-of-thing for years. I move slowly. There’s no performance, no audience, no choreography. Most clients tell me by session 2 or 3 that they were surprised by how not strange it felt.
I can’t dance / I’m not flexible. Is that a problem?
No experience needed. If you can move — sit, breathe, shift your weight, notice a hand on your knee — you can do this work. “Dance” in this tradition means any movement the body offers, not formal dance vocabulary.
Is there a lot of touching?
My practice is touch-light by default. Occasionally a Sensorimotor or DMT intervention may involve touch — always with explicit consent in the moment, never assumed. Most sessions involve no touch at all.
Do you do online sessions?
Yes, for Colorado-licensed clients. Online somatic work has its own grammar — we work with what’s visible on screen and what you can notice for yourself. Many clients find it more accessible than they expected, especially when scheduling makes in-person hard.
How long does this take?
There’s no honest answer in advance. The body works at its own pace. Most clients begin to feel meaningful shifts in 6–8 sessions; deeper integration takes longer. We track it together — and I will tell you when I notice the work has moved as far as it can with me.
What if I’m in a major life transition right now?
Then this work may be exactly the timing. Life transitions — moves, relationship changes, loss, becoming a parent — open the nervous system in ways that other times don’t. There is life on the other side, and the body is often the part that needs care during the crossing.
Training & credentials
Education
- MA, Somatic Counseling Psychology — Naropa University, Boulder, CO
- Postgraduate, Marriage and Family Therapy (2-year program) — Denver Family Institute, Colorado
Clinical training & certifications
- Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Level 1
- Pre- and Perinatal Psychotherapy with Dr. Annie Brook
- Perinatal Loss and Grief
- Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders
- Perinatal Assessment, Diagnosis, and Treatment
- PACT Level 1 — Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy (Stan Tatkin)
- EFT Core Skills for Couples — Emotion-Focused Therapy (Sue Johnson method)
- Gestalt Therapy
- Dance/Movement Therapy
Working as a psychotherapist since 2007. Earlier career in Russia: psychiatric hospital, Montessori schools, counseling centers, and a children’s shelter (ages 4–18). US clinical practice for the last four years.
Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), Colorado.
Sessions available in English and Russian.
Sound like the right doorway?
Book a free 30-min consultation →If what you’re carrying lives between you and a partner more than inside you alone, couples work may be the better door — some patterns only shift with both people in the room.