Military, Veterans & First Responders
Since 2010, I have been dedicated to supporting military service members, Veterans, caregivers, and military families. My work is informed by professional training, years of direct service, and lived experience as the former spouse and co-parent of an Operation Iraqi Freedom Veteran.
I also welcome first responders and others whose work involves repeated exposure to crisis, danger, loss, responsibility, and high-stress environments. Although military and first-responder experiences are not identical, both communities may face challenges related to trauma exposure, operational stress, identity, relationships, reintegration, and the pressure to remain strong while carrying difficult experiences.
Understanding the Impact of Service
Military service and first-response work can shape the way individuals understand safety, trust, responsibility, connection, and identity. Training that is essential for survival and effective performance in high-risk settings may become difficult to turn off after returning home or leaving the job.
Experiences related to deployment, combat, emergency response, repeated exposure to loss, moral conflict, injury, transition, caregiving, or reintegration may affect emotional health, relationships, sleep, the nervous system, and daily functioning. These effects can also extend throughout couples and family systems.
Therapy provides space to understand these responses without reducing a person to a diagnosis. Together, we explore what happened, how the mind and body adapted, what those adaptations may still be protecting, and what is now needed to support healing, connection, and a meaningful life.
Areas We May Address in Therapy
Treatment is individualized and grounded in respect for each client’s history, culture, responsibilities, strengths, and goals. Depending on your needs, therapy may include support related to:
Understanding Survival Responses
Many reactions that create difficulty in civilian, family, or relational life began as effective survival strategies. Hypervigilance, emotional compartmentalization, self-reliance, rapid threat assessment, and the ability to function under intense pressure may have been necessary in dangerous or unpredictable settings.
Rather than viewing these responses as personal failures, I invite clients to understand how the nervous system learned to protect them. Therapy involves respecting the purpose these adaptations once served while developing greater flexibility, regulation, connection, and choice in the present.
My Approach to Treatment
I use an integrative, trauma-informed, and individualized approach. Therapy may include psychoeducation about trauma and nervous system responses, practical regulation strategies, cognitive and behavioral interventions, EMDR, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Ego State or parts-oriented work, and Polyvagal-informed practices.
The goal is not to erase your experiences or ask you to become someone different. Our work focuses on helping you understand what you have carried, reduce the power of distressing symptoms, reconnect with your values, and strengthen your ability to participate in relationships and daily life with greater flexibility and choice.
Treatment moves at a pace that respects safety, readiness, and trust. When helpful, therapy may also involve collaboration with medical providers, psychiatrists, community resources, couples or family supports, and other members of your care team.
My Work with Wounded Warrior Project
Since 2016, I have served as a contract therapist with Wounded Warrior Project, facilitating Project Odyssey retreats for warriors and military families. Project Odyssey is an adventure-based program that supports participants in addressing invisible wounds, strengthening resilience, and building practical skills for meaningful and fulfilling lives.
Through experiential activities, psychoeducation, therapeutic interventions, and group processing, participants are offered opportunities to reconnect with themselves, their families, and their communities while developing tools that can support long-term wellness.
I have had the privilege of supporting more than 25 retreats across the United States while working alongside interdisciplinary teams serving Veterans, active-duty service members, caregivers, couples, and military families.
Lived Experience & A Passion for Service
Although I am a civilian, my connection to the military community has been shaped by years of personal and professional experience. As the former spouse and co-parent of an Operation Iraqi Freedom Veteran, I experienced many of the challenges, adaptations, sacrifices, and moments of resilience that can accompany military life.
I understand how invisible wounds such as post-traumatic stress can affect not only the service member, but also relationships, parenting, caregiving, communication, emotional safety, and the functioning of the family as a whole.
Lived experience does not mean that I assume every client’s story is the same as mine. Instead, it helps me approach this work with humility, cultural awareness, and respect for the complexity of military and family experiences. I aim to provide a space where clients do not have to overexplain the sacrifices, transitions, loyalty, loss, pride, frustration, and resilience that may coexist within their stories.
Advocacy, Education & Public Awareness
I have had the honor of appearing on The Tamron Hall Show and participating in a Veterans Day documentary. In my role as a warrior spouse at that time, I contributed to conversations about post-traumatic stress, the invisible wounds of war, and the effects these experiences can have on mental health, relationships, and family life.
This advocacy reflected an important part of my personal and professional mission: reducing shame, increasing understanding, and helping service members, Veterans, caregivers, and family members recognize that seeking support is a sign of awareness and courage—not weakness.
I have witnessed the meaningful transformation that can occur when military-connected individuals and families receive appropriate, culturally responsive treatment. Healing does not require forgetting what happened. It can mean learning to carry those experiences differently while reconnecting with purpose, relationships, and hope.
Healing, Connection & Life Beyond Survival
Moving forward does not mean minimizing what you experienced or abandoning the strengths that helped you survive. Healing involves creating enough safety and flexibility to determine which responses remain useful and which ones may now be limiting connection, rest, intimacy, meaning, or quality of life.
Together, we work toward a life in which trauma, service, loss, or occupational stress are meaningful parts of your story without having to control every part of your future. The process may be challenging, but change, reconnection, and renewed purpose are possible.
You should not have to choose between honoring your strength and acknowledging the impact of what you have carried. Therapy can make room for both.