Healing the inner world so life can open again
Return to belonging and aliveness
I approach therapy from a bio-psycho-social-spiritual model, a holistic framework that looks at the whole person—body, mind, relationships, and meaning. Rather than focusing only on symptoms, this approach recognizes that our physical health, emotional life, social environment, and sense of purpose are deeply interconnected and constantly shaping one another.
Modalities:
Somatic therapy reflects this model by treating the body as a primary pathway for healing. It understands that trauma and emotion live in our tissues and nervous system, and it uses tools of awareness and mindfulness like sensing and tracking, visualization, breath, movement, touch and sound to support regulation and release. Somatic work moves beyond talk therapy by honoring physiological responses, sensations, implicit content, posture, and subtle impulses as essential information. In doing so, it bridges the inner world of psyche with our outer relational experience, while supporting and strengthening our natural capacities for resilience, connection, and a deeper sense of meaning.
Somatic Internal Family Systems and Internal Family Systems(SIFS/IFS) also reflects the bio-psycho-social-spiritual model. IFS works with the biological (body sensations and somatic signals), the psychological (parts, emotions, beliefs), the social (relationships, family systems, culture), and the spiritual. In IFS the “Self,” is a core, conscious, inner essence—innate in all of us that can guide healing and foster secure attachment with fragmented or wounded parts. SIFS places particular emphasis on embodiment: how Self energy is experienced in the body and influences the psyche, as well as how wounded or fragmented parts live in the body and shape perception. Supporting clients in reconnecting with their embodied Self strengthens integration, regulation, and a sense of belonging and wholeness.
Begin With the Body
Our bodies hold both the imprint of everything we’ve lived and the map back to who we are. By listening to the body—its sensations, patterns, and stories—we open pathways out of collapse and confusion and into resilience, clarity, and empowerment.
“80% or more of health conditions are autonomic nervous system events.”
—James Jealous
The autonomic nervous system (ANS) quietly shapes how we respond to stress, fear, anger, trauma, and emotional intensity—as well as how we sleep, digest, and heal. Modern life challenges this sensitive system with constant stimulation, speed, and relational complexity. These pressures often layer on top of unresolved overwhelm—abuse, accidents, betrayal, threat, or abandonment—still stored in the body, often passed down through the attachment system (the first of our nervous system to develop) for generations.
When the nervous system is overloaded, it struggles to do its job. We may feel a steady hum of anxiety, a or notice sleep, digestion, and immunity begin to falter. Over time, this can collapse into exhaustion, depression, chronic pain, or a sense of disconnection from life. As we work to restore a sense of safety in the body, the innate intelligence of the body is supported to do what it knows best—recover, heal and unburden itself.
Shift the lived experience
When the body settles, the mind settles
When chronic tension softens, people rediscover that feeling can be pleasurable, safe, and positive
When old activation patterns release, new narratives become possible
When a protective part softens, relationships change
When the nervous system reorganizes, people feel more choice, freedom, and capacity
When somatic states shift, identity shifts
It’s a transformation that’s not just conceptual—it’s something the client feels in their body, behavior, relationships, and daily life.
WORK WITH Leslie
Psychotherapy
Therapeutic touch
embodied awareness
In the context of traumatic stress, "recovery or resolution" is largely defined by one’s ability to regain a felt sense of safety and trust. This means having capacity to process or digest traumatic experiences and the accompanied emotions without feeling overwhelmed or threatened. We grow this capacity by learning to consciously maintain connection to an internal felt sense of safety and support. This enables clients to heal and move forward with their life.
somatic experiencing
“To experience embodied awareness, take notice of the underlying sensations that actually inform you about how you feel. If you were to be asked how you feel when you are stressed or in pain, a common answer might be, “I feel anxious” or “I feel upset.” It’s important to go further by becoming curious about how you know that you’re feeling anxious or upset. Is there a tightness or burning that is happening right now inside of you that you are labeling “anxiety” or “upset”?”
― Peter A. Levine
Somatic Internal Family Systems
“IFS can be seen as attachment theory taken inside, in the sense that the client’s Self becomes the good attachment figure to their insecure or avoidant parts. I was initially amazed to discover that when I was able to help clients access their Self, they would spontaneously begin to relate to their parts in the loving way that the textbooks on attachment theory prescribed. This was true even for people who had never had good parenting in the first place. Not only would they listen to their young exiles with loving attention and hold them patiently while they cried, they would firmly but lovingly discipline the parts in the roles of inner critics or distractors. Self just knows how to be a good inner leader.”
― Richard C. Schwartz, No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model
Therapeutic Touch
Therapeutic Touch is a unique creation based on Advanced Somatic Trainings, Transforming Touch, Craniosacral Therapy, Polarity Therapy, Reiki, and years of advanced massage and bodywork trainings. These sessions are touch based interventions (sessions are also offered virtually through energetic intention and focused attention) to assist our whole being: bio-psycho-social-spiritual system, in recovering from physical and emotional overwhelm and stress. These experiences can range from the earliest of moments of life, attachemnt trauma, single event traumas, and/or current ongoing chronic pain. This body oriented touch modality works to create new pathways in our neurophysiology by introducing the intentional presence of safe and loving touch. Using touch, we have direct access to contact, nurture, and restore the over burdened physiology of developmental trauma, the resulting psyche and attachment style.
“Health is not merely of the body. It is the natural expression of the body, mind and soul when they are in rhythm with the One Life. True health is the harmony of life within us, consisting of peace of mind, happiness and well-being. It is not merely a question of physical fitness, but is rather a result of the soul finding free expression through the mind and body of the individual.” —Dr. Randolph Stone, DO, DC Founder of Polarity Therapy