Online therapy for emotional abuse, difficult relationships, family boundaries, and no or low contact.
You may be questioning a relationship, healing from emotional abuse, grieving what you hoped a family relationship could be, or deciding how much contact feels sustainable. We can start with what is happening now, even if you are still figuring out what to call it or what you want to do next.
We can look honestly at the relationship without starting with a predetermined ending. We will pay attention to what keeps happening, what the dynamic is costing you, and what shifts inside you when you try to respond differently.
You may have learned that being a good child, sibling, partner, or family member means staying available, keeping the peace, forgiving quickly, or absorbing behavior that hurts you.
We can explore the roles you were expected to play and whether they still belong in the life you are building now.
Distance exists on a spectrum. You may be considering fewer calls, shorter visits, limited topics, structured communication, temporary distance, low contact, or no contact. You may also be reconsidering a boundary you already set.
Therapy can help you decide what level of access feels sustainable without treating any one choice as the definition of healing.
Sometimes you are grieving more than the relationship as it exists. You may be grieving the apology that never came, the parent you wanted to feel safe with, the partnership you believed could change, or the family you hoped would eventually understand you. That grief matters even if the person is still alive and even if you were the one who created distance.
Therapy can help you understand the relationship, work through the guilt and pressure around it, and decide what boundaries or level of contact feel right for you. A free initial consultation is available, with no commitment required.
I take the impact of the relationship seriously, even when the story is complicated. We can look at what has happened, what you have tried, what keeps pulling you back into self-doubt, and what each option would actually mean for you. Love and harm can exist in the same relationship. So can anger, grief, loyalty, relief, and hope. Your job in therapy is not to arrive with a clean answer. My job is to help you see the situation more clearly while keeping the decision in your hands.
I am engaged and direct in sessions. I will ask questions, point out patterns when I see them, and help you notice what happens inside you when the relationship gets activated. We may look at family roles, self-doubt, guilt, or the belief that someone else’s comfort has to come before your wellbeing.
A part of you may want distance while another still hopes for repair. You may feel angry and protective of the other person at the exact same time. Those reactions are not proof that you are inconsistent. They developed for reasons worth understanding, especially when guilt, fear, love, or responsibility have been tied to this relationship for a long time.
Part of you can know a relationship is hurting you while another still hopes it will change. You can want a boundary and feel guilty holding it. You can need distance and miss the person terribly.
IFS gives us a way to understand those reactions instead of making one of them the “correct” one. As an IFS Institute Level 2 Trained Psychologist, I use parts work to explore what fear, hope, guilt, or obligation is trying to protect. When those reactions are understood, they can become information rather than the only voice making the decision.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a therapy approach that helps you understand the different “parts” of yourself that may react in different ways. One part may want distance while another feels guilty. One may know a boundary is needed while another fears what will happen if you set it.
Rather than judging those reactions, IFS helps us understand what they are trying to protect so you can respond with more clarity and choice.
A boundary can make sense and still feel terrible.
You may know you need less contact while another part worries about hurting someone, being judged by your family, regretting the decision, or becoming the “bad person” in someone else’s story.
I use IFS to help you understand what is underneath those reactions rather than treating guilt as proof that your boundary is wrong. The work is not about pushing you toward more distance or reconciliation. It is about helping you hear all of what is happening inside you so you can decide what level of contact actually feels sustainable.
You may understand intellectually that something is not working and still feel yourself apologizing, overexplaining, answering the call, or taking responsibility for the other person’s feelings.
IFS helps us get curious about the parts of you that learned these responses were necessary. A people-pleasing part may believe conflict threatens the relationship. A guilty part may believe protecting yourself makes you selfish. Another part may still be holding onto the hope that this time things will finally be different.
Understanding those parts does not mean letting them make every decision. It gives us more room to respond instead of automatically repeating what you have always had to do.
Whether you are questioning a painful relationship, dealing with emotional abuse, struggling with family dynamics, or deciding how much contact feels right, therapy gives you space to understand what is happening without being pushed toward a particular outcome.
We look honestly at the patterns between you, what keeps happening, what gets minimized, and what leaves you questioning yourself or taking responsibility for more than is yours.
Together, we explore the guilt, hope, fear, family roles, and protective responses that can make it difficult to trust what you know or respond differently.
That may mean changing how you respond, setting a boundary, creating more distance, or reconsidering the relationship altogether. The goal is not to tell you what to do. It is to help you make choices that feel like your own.
No. We can talk about the behavior, the impact it has on you, and the patterns that continue to create fear, guilt, confusion, or self-doubt. Clarity can develop without forcing a diagnosis or label.
No. Those decisions belong to you. We can explore what is happening, the options available to you, the barriers you are facing, and what each choice may mean for your wellbeing.
No. Reconciliation is not automatically healthier because someone is family, and forgiveness is not a requirement for therapy to be meaningful.
If you want to explore reconnection, we can. If you need help maintaining distance, we can do that too.
Love, grief, anger, hope, and the need for distance can exist together. Missing someone does not automatically tell you what the relationship should look like. We can make room for those feelings without turning them into instructions.
Guilt does not automatically mean the boundary was wrong. It may reflect family roles, fear of disapproval, learned responsibility, or years of being expected to prioritize someone else’s needs. We can understand the guilt without letting it make every decision.
No. Some people maintain no contact. Others use it temporarily, move toward limited contact, or adjust boundaries as circumstances change. A boundary can have been necessary even if you later decide to change it.
I cannot diagnose someone I have not evaluated. We can still talk directly about manipulation, control, invalidation, emotional withdrawal, or other behaviors and the effect they have on you. You do not need another person to receive a diagnosis before taking your own experience seriously.
