Connecting the Dots Beneath Anxiety, Burnout & Overfunctioning
For insightful, high-functioning women who are tired of managing symptoms and ready to understand the deeper patterns driving anxiety, burnout, perfectionism, and relational overwhelm.
Looking Beyond Symptoms
Many of my clients come to therapy feeling confused about why they’re still struggling despite being highly insightful, self-aware, and capable. They’ve read the books, listened to the podcasts, learned the coping skills, and may have even been in therapy before—yet they still find themselves stuck in the same painful cycles.
On the surface, it can look like anxiety, burnout, perfectionism, people pleasing, emotional overwhelm, or even depression. But often, there are deeper patterns underneath that deserve curiosity rather than judgment.
I take an integrative, biopsychosocial approach to therapy, meaning I look at the full picture—not just symptoms in isolation. Together, we explore the invisible threads connecting your nervous system, relational experiences, coping patterns, chronic stress, identity, neurodivergence, hormones, and life history to better understand what may be driving the cycle.
Rather than assuming your reactions are simply “irrational” or distorted, I view many of these patterns as adaptive strategies that once helped you survive, stay connected, stay safe, or meet expectations—but may no longer be sustainable in the way you’re living now.
How I can help
You’ve finally found a therapist who gets it!
Many of my clients come to therapy feeling frustrated that they already understand their patterns intellectually, yet still feel stuck repeating them. They’ve often spent years trying to “fix” themselves with insight, coping skills, perfectionism, productivity systems, or self-monitoring, only to end up more exhausted, disconnected, and overwhelmed.
My approach goes beyond symptom management to help uncover the deeper patterns driving anxiety, burnout, overfunctioning, people pleasing, masking, relational stress, and emotional overwhelm. Rather than assuming these experiences are simply distorted thinking, I view many of them as adaptive coping strategies that once served an important purpose but no longer feel sustainable.
As a Certified Integrative Mental Health Professional (CIMHP), I take a biopsychosocial approach that considers the full context of your experience—including nervous system patterns, attachment wounds, trauma, chronic stress, neurodivergence, hormones, relational history, and lived experience. When appropriate, I may also collaborate with or refer to integrative and functional providers to explore contributing biological or physiological factors.
My work is informed by both advanced clinical training and lived experience. I’m trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS), Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT), Brainspotting, mindfulness-based approaches, DBT skills, integrative mental health, and sex therapy-informed care. Rather than forcing clients into rigid treatment models, I thoughtfully tailor these approaches based on each person’s nervous system, history, and needs.
As a late-diagnosed AuDHD provider myself, I’m especially passionate about helping insightful, high-functioning clients understand the intersection of masking, relational wounds, perfectionism, burnout, chronic illness, trauma, and the pressure to keep appearing capable while quietly struggling underneath.
This is experiential work—not another place to endlessly intellectualize what you already understand conceptually. Together, we slow down, connect the dots beneath the symptoms, and create change that feels more compassionate, sustainable, and aligned with who you actually are.
How We’ll Approach the Work…
Many of the patterns clients struggle with—anxiety, perfectionism, overfunctioning, people pleasing, emotional shutdown, or burnout—didn’t develop randomly. Often, they began as adaptive ways of staying safe, connected, accepted, or in control in environments where your needs, emotions, or neurobiology may not have been fully understood.
I often begin with Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy to help clients better understand the “parts” of themselves that carry pressure, self-criticism, fear, over-responsibility, or emotional overwhelm. Rather than trying to force these patterns away, we approach them with curiosity and compassion so we can better understand what they’ve been protecting and why change can feel so difficult at times.
This work helps create more self-awareness, self-trust, and internal flexibility so that different parts of you no longer have to stay stuck in extreme roles just to help you get through life.
Understanding the Protective Patterns
Building Safety & Emotional Capacity
Insight alone doesn’t always create change—especially when your nervous system has spent years operating in survival mode. Many clients intellectually understand their patterns but still struggle to slow down, set limits, tolerate uncertainty, or respond differently in emotionally charged situations.
Using Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT), DBT skills, mindfulness-based approaches, and nervous system-focused work, we focus on building the emotional capacity needed to support lasting change. This may include learning how to make room for difficult thoughts and emotions without automatically reacting to them, strengthening boundaries without guilt, tolerating imperfection, or reconnecting with your values and sense of self outside of performance, helping, or over-responsibility.
Rather than forcing change through pressure or self-criticism, we work toward creating enough internal safety and flexibility for new choices to feel more accessible and sustainable.
Trauma is not always just about what happened to us—it can also be about what didn’t happen for us. Sometimes the deepest wounds come from emotional needs that were overlooked, inconsistent safety, chronic pressure to perform, lack of attunement, or learning early on that certain emotions, needs, or parts of yourself were too much, unsafe, or unsupported.
Over time, these experiences can shape the nervous system in ways that contribute to anxiety, perfectionism, overfunctioning, emotional shutdown, people pleasing, or chronic burnout patterns that continue long after the original environment has changed.
Once we’ve built enough internal safety and capacity, we may integrate Brainspotting and other experiential approaches to help process patterns that continue to feel emotionally or physically “stuck.” I approach trauma work carefully and collaboratively because moving too quickly can feel overwhelming for some nervous systems—especially for clients who are highly sensitive, neurodivergent, or used to overriding their own limits just to keep functioning.
Rather than pushing you to relive painful experiences, this work focuses on helping your nervous system process and integrate what has felt unresolved so you can move through life with more flexibility, connection, and self-trust.
Processing Trauma & Relational Wounds
Creating More Sustainable Ways of Living & Relating
Healing is not about becoming a completely different person or never struggling again. It’s about creating a life that no longer requires you to constantly override yourself in order to feel worthy, safe, accepted, productive, or needed.
As therapy progresses, we focus on helping you build more sustainable patterns rooted in self-trust, emotional flexibility, authenticity, boundaries, and nervous system awareness. This often includes learning how to recognize your limits earlier, respond to yourself with more compassion, communicate needs more clearly, and make choices that align with your values instead of operating on autopilot survival strategies.
For many clients, this work also involves grieving old roles and identities—like always being “the responsible one,” “the helper,” or “the easy one”—while slowly building a more connected relationship with themselves underneath the performance, pressure, or masking.
The goal isn’t perfection. It’s helping you feel more present, grounded, and able to move through life in a way that feels more sustainable, intentional, and genuinely your own.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO FIGURE THIS OUT BY YOURSELF.