About Abby
Those who work with Abby may describe her as deeply curious, open-minded, patient, gentle, and transparent. She takes the safety of the therapeutic relationship very seriously, knowing it is essential to the effectiveness of therapy. She works collaboratively with clients, encourages mutual feedback, and allows the time and space to move intuitively through the therapeutic process.
Abby has experience in college counseling, higher levels of care at an eating disorder treatment center, and private practice. She works with individuals impacted by trauma and dissociation, suicidal thoughts and self-harm behaviors, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, anxiety, depression, relationship challenges, grief, and eating and body image concerns. She is skilled in supporting individuals with eating disorders, approaching one’s relationship with nourishment in the context of their broader life experiences.
Abby is especially drawn to helping people work through shame, untangle questions of identity, and build deeper self-understanding. She creates a nonjudgmental space where clients can explore who they are, unmasked, and how they show up in different spaces in their lives. Her goal is to help clients move from self-criticism and shame toward self-compassion, clarity, and wholehearted, authentic living.
Therapeutic Approach
Abby takes an integrative approach to working with clients, viewing each person’s life through an attachment- and trauma-informed, strengths-based lens. She approaches diagnoses thoughtfully and primarily for insurance purposes, and does not pathologize the ways people cope and survive. Abby believes that our emotions, thoughts, behaviors, and somatic experiences all make sense within the stories of our lives. In sessions, she works with clients to understand their current challenges in a wider context, supporting self-compassion, insight, and the opportunity to heal the deeper roots of their suffering.
Therapeutic approaches and modalities Abby incorporates include:
Polyvagal Theory
Attachment Theory
Dissociation Theory
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Eye-Movement Desensitization Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR)
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Motivational Interviewing (MI)
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
Radically-Open Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (RO-DBT)
If it is helpful to know more specific diagnoses Abby is trained and experienced in supporting, these include (in no particular order):
Complex post-traumatic stress disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Other specified dissociative disorder
Dissociative identity disorder
Binge eating disorder
Anorexia & atypical anorexia nervosa
Orthorexia nervosa
Avoidant-restrictive food intake disorder
Bulimia nervosa
Obsessive compulsive disorder
Generalized anxiety disorder
Major depressive disorder
Attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder
Autism spectrum disorder
Trichotillomania and Other Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors (BFRBs)