Meet NICOLE, BOARD CERTIFIED ART THERAPIST (ATR-BC), LMFT
You do not have to know exactly what to say before you begin.
Therapy can make room for what has been hard to name: through conversation, art-making, the body, and the images or patterns that emerge over time.
We can begin wherever you are.
What therapy with me can make room for
You may feel pulled between family, culture, identity, relationships, grief, or versions of yourself that do not easily fit together. Many people come to therapy when old ways of managing no longer work: overthinking, people-pleasing, shutting down, staying busy, performing competence, or carrying everything alone. Together, we can begin to understand what those patterns have protected and what else might now be possible.
Art therapy can give us something outside of talk to notice, organize, question, and return to over time. In our work, we may use images, materials, writing, movement, somatic awareness, EMDR, or conversation to approach what has been hard to name — without forcing everything into one clear story before it is ready.
My approach
Therapy with me is collaborative, creative, and grounded in consent, pacing, and curiosity.
I work with adults navigating adoption, identity, grief, trauma, relationships, creativity, cultural displacement, and family complexity. Sessions may include conversation, art-making, writing, movement, digital tools, somatic awareness, EMDR, or simply noticing what is present together.
My lived experience as an adopted person and my long-standing art practice inform how I listen — to language, image, body, silence, repetition, material choices, and what may not yet have a clear form. My clinical training helps me hold that material with care, structure, and attention to pacing.
My guiding principles
Pacing and capacity
We do not have to go everywhere all at once. Therapy works best when we move at a pace your system can tolerate, with room to pause, resource, return, or shift direction when needed.
Creative form and containment
Art-making can help difficult material become visible without becoming overwhelming. We can use images, materials, scale, structure, and choice to create enough containment for something new to emerge.
Complexity without judgment
Many people come to therapy carrying shame, ambivalence, grief, anger, loyalty, longing, or questions they have been afraid to say out loud. I work to create a space where complexity can be explored without forcing a simple answer.
Training & Education
MA in Marital and Family with a specialization in Clinical Art Therapy, Loyola Marymount University
MFA in Electronic Integrated Arts, Alfred University
BFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Architecture studies, Virginia Tech
EMDR Trained, EMDR Institute
Basic Principles of Somatic Experiencing®
Community Resiliency Model (CRM®)
Social Emotional Arts (SEA) Certificate, Arts & Healing Initiative
Listen In: Conversations on Art, Adoption, and Therapy
These conversations offer another way to learn about my work — including how adoption, art-making, clinical training, and lived experience shape my approach to therapy. Topics include in-between spaces, creative process, identity, grief, and the long work of making meaning without forcing resolution.