My interest in a more embodied approach to psychotherapy emerged gradually, through both clinical work and personal experience.
As I continued gaining experience in traditional psychotherapy, I became increasingly aware about a recurring pattern. People often developed profound insight into their experiences. They understood where their anxiety, perfectionism, or relationship patterns had come from. Yet despite that understanding, many still found themselves responding in the same ways and repeating old patterns.
I recognized this same divide in my own life. My mind could recognize that my circumstances had changed, yet my body continued responding from expectations that had been shaped by my past. I found myself reacting to the present as though it still required the same protection I had once needed.
This gap became central to my clinical curiosity. It raised a fundamental question: What supports change that is not only understood, but lived?
That question led me toward somatic and neuroscience-informed approaches that attend directly to the nervous system and the body’s role in how experience is organized. As these methods became part of my own practice and my work with clients, the difference was clear. When the body is included, change becomes more felt, integrated, and sustainable.
That understanding became the foundation of my work. Today, I integrate depth-oriented talk-therapy, neuroscience, and embodied approaches to help clients bridge the gap between understanding themselves and experiencing lasting, felt change.
I’m Alex. I work with women and adolescent girls who are capable and self-aware, yet feel disconnected from themselves or stuck in patterns that don’t shift through understanding alone. Much of my work focuses on bridging that gap: between insight and experience, reflection and embodiment, coping and integration.
meet the founder
Many of the patterns we carry begin as intelligent adaptations to the environments in which we developed. Over time, repeated experiences shape expectations about ourselves, other people, and the world around us. Those expectations influence what we notice, how our bodies prepare, and the choices we make. Eventually, they can become so familiar that they begin feeling like personality, or simply "how I am".
Because these expectations are carried not only in thought but in the nervous system, they rarely change through awareness alone. We may understand where a pattern came from while still finding ourselves responding automatically in familiar ways. The mind recognizes the present, while the body continues preparing for the past.
This understanding shapes the way I practice. Rather than asking people to think differently, I help them experience something different. Through psychodynamic exploration, somatic work, and carefully integrated experiential embodiment practices, therapy becomes a place where the nervous system can gradually update what it has learned to expect.
Much of what we experience as disconnection is not a failure of insight, but a protective response held in the body.
This is what I came to understand—both personally and through my clinical work. When the body has learned to stay guarded or tense, it doesn't simply remember the past. It begins anticipating the future through it. Experience narrows. Emotional range contracts. The nervous system starts organizing itself around what it has learned to expect.
People often expect healing to arrive as a dramatic breakthrough. More often, it reveals itself in everyday moments—a conversation that no longer feels threatening, a boundary that's easier to hold, or an emotion that no longer has to be pushed away. These experiences accumulate, giving the nervous system new evidence about what it can expect from itself, other people, and the world.
As those expectations begin changing, new ways of relating become more natural. Emotional flexibility expands. Relationships become more secure. Boundaries require less effort. Change becomes integrated into daily life—not because you're forcing yourself to respond differently, but because your nervous system has begun expecting something different.
These shifts tend to last because they are learned through lived experience—not simply understood intellectually.
As the nervous system begins collecting new experiences, the expectations it has carried for years begin to change. Most people don't experience this as becoming someone different. They experience it as responding differently. Situations that once felt overwhelming become more manageable. Emotions become easier to stay with. There is often a growing sense of steadiness, flexibility, and trust in one's ability to navigate life's challenges.
For some, this means finally processing experiences that had long been avoided. For others, it means feeling more present in their bodies, more authentic in relationships, or less driven by old patterns of protection. While these changes look different for everyone, they often share one thing in common: people begin responding to the present instead of reacting from the past.
WHAT TENDS TO SHIFT
My clinical foundation began with traditional psychotherapy, earning my graduate clinical Social Work degree from Columbia University and working with individuals navigating anxiety, depression, grief, trauma, and life transitions. Those experiences deepened my appreciation for insight, but also revealed its limitations when the body continued responding from old patterns.
Earlier in my career, I served in the military before later going on to work within the VA setting, providing psychotherapy to fellow veterans navigating PTSD. That work profoundly shaped my understanding of how prolonged stress, trauma, and the nervous system influence the way people experience themselves and the world around them.
That curiosity eventually led me back to Columbia to pursue additional graduate education in Neuroscience, allowing me to explore the brain, learning, memory, and the nervous system through a different lens.
Today, my work integrates depth-oriented psychodynamic psychotherapy, neuroscience, and somatic, experiential approaches because I believe meaningful change happens when both the mind and the body are included in the therapeutic process. Rather than relying on insight alone, therapy becomes a place where new experiences can begin reshaping long-held expectations.
The way I practice today wasn't developed overnight. It has been shaped through years of clinical work, graduate education in both psychotherapy and neuroscience, extensive somatic training and a deep curiosity about one question: What creates lasting change?
Every part of my training has contributed a different piece of that answer.
expertise
Lasting change doesn't happen when we simply understand ourselves differently. It happens when the mind and body begin expecting—and living—something different.
Client retention rate after first month
94%
average client decrease in PHQ score
5.3
average client decrease in GAD SCORE
4.8
satisfied clients served
130+
average client satisfaction rate
4.9
master of social work, columbia univ.
msc
master of neuroscience, columbia univ.
msc
completed sessions to date
3000+
my credentials
2010
I graduated high school and joined the military, enlisting in the Air Force! With little resources, but big dreams - I needed a way to fund my education.
The Timeline
Through the years
I finished my four-year enlistment and moved out to Spain to teach English whilst finishing up the last of my bacehlor's degree. Both my body and my spirit needed a little re-set after what was an intense experience!
2014
Completed my bachelor's degree in Psychology, alas feeling like I was making moves towards my mission!
2015
After spending about two years in Barcelona, I moved to New York and enrolled in the post-bacc pre-med program at Columbia University! (At the time, I thought I still wanted to go on to medical school to be a Psychiatrist.)
2016
Plot twist! After years of sleepless nights, my body was begging me for a better way, and I decided to pivot slightly and instead enrolled in Columbia's Social Work program to do psychotherapy. I also got certified to be a mindfulness meditation teacher, understanding firsthand the importance of a holistic approach to wellbeing.
2019
I finished my graduate studies and began working as a full-time psychotherapist! At this time, I also began intensive somatic training to use in tandem with my work.
2021
Fascinated with the brain-body connection, I decided to pursue another graduate degree to further dive into my studies and enrolled in the Neuroscience program at Columbia University.
2023
I launched Ritualize!!! A dream of mine for well over a decade! While there were lots of twists and turns along the way, we arrived... and yet? The journey continues!
2025
Can't wait to see what else unfolds along the way...
here & now
Finally lighting my beautiful candles
Making my own jewelry
That first sip of coffee
Meditating and taking time to recharge
Reading psycho-thrillers in Autumn
Journaling my morning pages
Enjoying a long sauna session
Summers by the beach
My favorite things in life look a little like this.
from our wonderful clients
“Alex has the ability to create a space where you feel deeply seen, genuinely understood and safe enough to explore parts of yourself you've been avoiding for years.”
“I can’t thank you enough for being such a meaningful support. Alex is exceptional at what she does, and her impact is undeniable.”
“I’m deeply grateful for your support over the years. I’ve worked with several therapists, but I’ve never felt so genuinely understood.”
Again and again, I’ve seen that lasting change rarely comes from trying harder or understanding more. It emerges as people begin having enough new experiences that reshape what they expect from themselves, other people, and the world around them.
This work isn't about fixing who you are. It's about helping your mind and body discover that they no longer have to respond as though the past is still happening.
If this way of understanding healing resonates with you, I'd be honored to support you in that work.
What once helped us survive can continue shaping our lives long after it is no longer needed. Over more than 3,000 therapy sessions, I’ve witnessed the many ways people adapt to survive difficult experiences. What appears on the surface as anxiety, self-criticism, emotional overwhelm, perfectionism, or disconnection often reflects strategies that once served a protective purpose.
Healing isn't the goal. It's what makes it possible to fully participate in your life again.
It's waking up with more energy to invest in what matters most to you. It's feeling present in your relationships instead of anticipating how they'll end. It's making decisions from your values rather than your fears. It's trusting yourself enough that every choice no longer feels like something to second-guess.
The work itself happens in therapy. The purpose of the work happens everywhere else.
Over time, many people find that they spend less energy protecting themselves from what might happen and more energy engaging with what is happening right now. They begin noticing more joy, greater connection, deeper presence, and a renewed sense of possibility—not because life becomes perfect, but because they no longer feel like they have to constantly brace themselves.
And what becomes possible?
