Cricket

I'm a queer, neurodivergent therapist, educator, and creator of Our Mosaic Self, a counseling and healing practice devoted to helping people reconnect with their inner wisdom, creativity, and spirit.

I believe healing happens through connection.

When we feel truly seen, valued, and witnessed, we return home to ourselves. I work with those who’ve spent years surviving by masking, performing, or over-functioning to rediscover their inner truth, rebuild self-trust, and cultivate relationships infused with safety, compassion, and authenticity.

My Story

My story begins in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where I was adopted as an infant. I have always sensed that a part of me was left behind there, an invisible thread pulling me toward the question of who I truly am and where I belong. As a child, I could feel everything—the grief, the tension, the unspoken ache that lingered in the air. I learned to listen for what wasn’t said, to find safety in performance, and to build imaginary worlds from the quiet corners of my mind. Childhood often felt like Wonderland: dazzling, distorted, and full of riddles about love and worthiness. The people I depended on could become unfamiliar, so I learned to shapeshift—softening my voice, shrinking my needs, and becoming whatever each moment required. It was a kind of magic born from survival, but it left me exiled from my own truth.

In college, I was diagnosed with complex PTSD, ADHD, and an auditory processing disorder. These words were both a map and a mirror, revealing how deeply I had learned to hide. For years, I silenced my truth. Misunderstood, ridiculed, and shamed for the body that carried me, I absorbed the lie that belonging required self-betrayal. But the body never forgets. My healing began when I started listening to the parts of myself I had once exiled—the wild, the furious, the tender, the too-much. I began to see that what I had once labeled as broken was, in truth, sacred. These parts were never the problem; they were waiting to be named, held, and loved back into wholeness.

Meeting my birth family opened another layer of remembering. Seeing their faces felt like looking into a mirror I hadn’t known was missing. Tracing my Swiss-German and Celtic-Gaulic roots, I recognized the pulse of the women who came before me—artists, healers, caretakers, survivors who carried their own stories of resilience and restraint. I came to understand that the pain I carried was not mine alone but part of a lineage shaped by both beauty and harm. Healing, I’ve learned, is not a solitary act but an ancestral and collective one—a devotion to turning toward what we inherit and choosing, again and again, to meet it with love.

I often return to a story Audre Lorde once told about her daughter saying, “Tell them about how you’re never really a whole person if you remain silent, because there’s always that one little piece inside of you that wants to be spoken out, and if you keep ignoring it, it gets madder and madder and hotter and hotter, and if you don’t speak it out one day it will just up and punch you in the mouth.” Those words became both a revelation and a reckoning. Silence is not peace—it is self-abandonment. The parts we bury do not disappear; they burn quietly beneath the surface, waiting for the moment we are brave enough to turn toward them. That silenced piece of me—the one that refused to die—kept rising. It was my anger, my grief, my voice, my power. When I finally listened, when I let that truth speak, it did not destroy me. It set me free.

This realization became the heartbeat of my work: the knowing that every part of us, even the ones we have learned to fear, is worthy of reverence. Healing is not about becoming pure or perfect. It is about remembering that we were never unworthy of love to begin with. Over time, I have also had to unlearn the quieter truths of my own privilege. As a white person, I once believed that compassion or awareness separated me from systems of harm. But whiteness is an unearned inheritance of safety and silence, a comfort that too often comes at a cost. I began to see how I was unknowingly participating in what I wished to dismantle. Shame urged me to hide, but courage—the kind rooted in love—asked me to stay open, to keep listening, and to allow myself to be changed.

Power, for me, is not control or certainty; it is the willingness to be accountable, to use my voice and privilege as instruments of repair. Healing, both personal and collective, means looking directly at what we inherit—the beauty, the harm, and the patterns we repeat—and meeting them with honesty instead of denial. Belonging is not real if it depends on someone else’s exclusion. My work now is to keep returning to that truth, to let love and discomfort walk side by side, and to remember that liberation is not a destination but a daily practice of becoming more whole, together.

I am a mother of two, raising a neurodivergent child while tending to my own healing. Motherhood continues to be a threshold of becoming, a mirror that strips away illusion and deepens empathy. It reminds me that healing does not happen in isolation—it unfolds in relationship, in the raw and imperfect practice of presence, repair, and love that begins anew each day.

I live between worlds—the visible and the unseen. A rising Sagittarius with a Pisces moon and Cancer rising, I find home where logic meets intuition and psychology meets the mystery of being human. The rhythm of trees, the pull of the moon, and the hum of music are how I remember what cannot be spoken. These are my quiet altars. When I am not working, I am with my partner, our children, and the animals who share our home. I think of myself as a wildflower soul—queer, neurodivergent, deeply feeling, and endlessly curious about what it means to be alive in this body, in this time.

An advocate for body liberation, trans rights, and mental health equity, I believe that healing and justice are the same prayer spoken in different tongues. To love the body, to honor identity, and to tell the truth about our pain are all acts of liberation. Our Mosaic Self was born from the art of my own becoming. What began as a literal collage—a way to gather what had shattered—grew into a guiding philosophy: we are not meant to fix what feels broken but to honor every fragment as sacred. I no longer seek completion. I trust in the beauty of the unfinished, in the quiet miracle that healing, like art, is never done. It is always becoming.

My Vision

To reimagine therapy as a sanctuary of wholeness, creativity, and liberation, where every person and part of self is seen, honored, and supported in returning home to their truth.

Here, healing is expansive. We move beyond traditional models to create spaces that celebrate complexity, embrace neurodivergence, and affirm the full spectrum of identity.

Through trauma-informed, body-based, and identity-affirming care, we nurture authentic connection, self-trust, and belonging. The dream extends beyond the therapy room, envisioning a center where counseling, creative expression, and community care come together—a place where healing is shared and every voice and story are valued.

Vision

Approach

My Approach

Take a breath. You’ve landed in a nurturing space.

Maybe you or someone you love is moving through life shaped by trauma or painful experiences.
Maybe you’re processing the world through a lens that’s often misunderstood, criticized, or rejected.
Perhaps your heart has been told it’s too much—or not enough.

You may be sorting through layers of identity, trying to make sense of the past, or wondering if there’s a version of life where you can feel safe, connected, and whole.

I work with LGBTQ+ and neurodivergent teens and adults, as well as those healing from trauma, who are ready to explore who they are beyond survival. Together, we make space for the parts of you that protect, perform, shut down, or speak too loudly. We honor what helped you cope, while gently building a path toward authenticity, agency, and deeper connection—with yourself, with others, and with the world around you.

This is a space where your whole self is welcome.
You don’t have to mask, translate, or minimize what you’re feeling.
We’ll move slowly, honoring your pace and tuning in to what your system needs to feel safe and seen.

How I Work

We Begin with Regulation and Attunement

Therapy with me starts with presence, not performance.
Before strategies or skills, we check in on the basics—sleep, body, mood, energy. We notice what your system is already carrying. You’ll never be rushed; we begin with attunement and care.

I normalize depletion and burnout as legitimate human responses, not personal flaws. We start with I’m with you, not let’s fix you.

Understanding the Body’s Story

Much of our work involves translating symptoms into the language of the nervous system.

Together we explore:

How hyperarousal—feeling activated or anxious—can lead to collapse or exhaustion
How the body protects through numbness, withdrawal, or shutdown
How the brain experiences emotional pain as real as physical pain

This reframes “I’m going numb and I hate it” into “My system is protecting me.”

When the body is seen as wise instead of broken, shame gives way to compassion.

Working with Parts

Using Internal Family Systems (IFS), we explore your internal world as a community of parts rather than a single self.

You might notice:

A part that wants guardrails
A part that longs to disappear
A part that criticizes or protects

We bring curiosity: What is that part afraid of? What does it need?

This helps you step back from overwhelm, recognize coping states as protective, and begin to relate to your inner world with compassion instead of judgment.

Reaching the Root

We won’t stay only at the surface. Beneath burnout or anxiety often live deeper fears—powerlessness, isolation, the sense that no one will protect you.

Together, we trace those patterns to their origins: attachment ruptures, inherited messages, family rules about safety and belonging. We name them as legacy burdens—survival patterns that once kept your people safe but now live as tension in your body.

By honoring these stories rather than pathologizing them, we begin to free you from their hold.

Honoring the Collective and Cultural Context

Your story doesn’t exist in isolation.
We’ll explore how intergenerational trauma, cultural identity, and systemic oppression shape your nervous system and sense of belonging.

When we name these truths, we remove blame and restore dignity.
Your family’s survival strategies are not dysfunction—they’re wisdom. Together, we discover how to carry that wisdom forward without the exhaustion that came with it.

Transforming Inner Conflict

Anger, shame, and self-criticism are not moral failings; they are forms of love in disguise.

We reframe harsh inner voices as protective parts devoted to safety, loyalty, or justice.
By understanding their fear and intention, you can meet them with gratitude instead of guilt.
This opens space for self-compassion, repair, and emotional freedom.

Rest, Resistance, and Renewal

I believe rest is resistance.
Your nervous system’s need to pull back is not laziness—it’s wisdom.
Learning to honor exhaustion as intelligence allows you to care for yourself without abandoning your values.

You’ll learn to listen to your body’s rhythms and build practices of restoration that support both your healing and your activism.

Co-Regulation and Relationship

Healing happens in relationship.
We slow down, check consent, and stay with what feels safe.

I reflect your experience in plain language: That makes sense. That’s protective.
You’ll leave sessions with small, accessible ways to regulate—through music, creativity, sensory play, or grounding techniques.

We also celebrate joy, humor, and connection. Small moments of warmth and attunement become the medicine that helps your system remember safety.

My Approach

My work is an integrative, relational, parts-based practice that weaves together:

Internal Family Systems (IFS) and parts work
Attachment and relational trauma frameworks
Polyvagal and nervous-system-informed awareness
Intergenerational and cultural trauma context
Creative, body-based, and mindfulness practices

Together, we move from:

“I’m broken and should be doing more”
to
“My body is protecting me. My anger is loyalty. My exhaustion makes sense. My rest is resistance. I deserve care.”

The Mosaic of Healing

Healing isn’t about erasing the past.
It’s about integrating the mosaic—piece by piece, story by story—until something truer and steadier begins to emerge.

Every fragment of you has meaning. Every part belongs.
Together, we’ll help your system remember that wholeness isn’t something you earn—it’s something you already carry.

A Statement about Mental Health and Oppression

Much of what we understand as “treatment” has been shaped by white supremacy, colonialism, ableism, and heteronormativity—systems that have pathologized difference, erased ancestral wisdom, and prioritized assimilation over authenticity. For many, mental health care has been a source of harm as much as healing.

In my practice, we name that. We resist the idea that healing means becoming more palatable or "functional" within oppressive systems. Instead, we make space for grief, rage, cultural reclamation, and self-determined ways of knowing. I believe healing is not about adjusting to a broken world, but about finding wholeness, connection, and liberation within and beyond it.

Education & Training

MA in Counselor Education, The College of New Jersey

BA in Musical Theater, Wagner College

Licensure & Certification

Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) — New Jersey & Pennsylvania

Certified EMDR Therapist (EMDRIA)

EMDR Consultant-in-Training (EMDRIA)

Certified IFS-Informed EMDR Therapist (Syzygy Institute)

IFS Level-1 Trained (Institute for Internal Family Systems)

Somatic Attachment Therapist Certification (The Embody Lab)

Certified School Counselor — New Jersey

Professional Roles

Adjunct Faculty, Graduate Counseling Program, The College of New Jersey

Former Education Director, Mazzoni Center, LGBTQ Health Non-profit

National trainer and consultant on LGBTQ+ mental health, neurodiversity, and trauma

Equity Statement

Education and Training