Collaboration is the practice of understanding something together. This means that my work relies on active participation, and that I believe that change happens through a shared process of reflection and action.
Conflict often means that something matters enough that people are still working to address it, and I am drawn to working with conflict in that space. Sometimes conflict ends in rupture, but we can focus our approach in a way that prioritizes clarity, understanding, and stronger relationships.
Liberation Psychology rejects the idea that suffering can be understood only on the individual level. My work is grounded on the idea that distress happens in context, and that understanding a person means that I must also understand the conditions shaping their lives.
I value honesty and transparency because people should not have to sit in a room trying to decode the person who is supposed to be helping them. So I try to make public what is relevant in my thinking, questions, and responses, so the process is not hidden behind clinical distance.
I work from the belief that people are shaped in relationship, harmed in relationship, and often healed in relationship too. Which means I am a full person when I come into the session, flawed and complex, and that humanity is also part of how the work happens.
I work from the belief that people are more than the worst thing they have done, but not separate from it. While accountability is not a time machine, people can still take responsibility, work toward repair, and change in meaningful ways.