Who we are
At Nautical Mile Therapy, we see psychotherapy as a space for understanding yourself more deeply in your emotions, relationships, patterns, desires, and the experiences that have shaped you. We believe this understanding can open possibilities for meaningful change and a life that feels more authentically your own.
Our approach is grounded in person-centered, humanistic, existential, attachment-based, and constructivist traditions. We believe you are the expert on your own life. Therapy offers a relationship grounded in empathy, genuineness, acceptance, and curiosity, where you can explore the meanings you have developed about yourself and the world around you.
We view emotions as meaningful experiences that can provide insight into what matters and what you need. We also consider behaviors and struggles within the context of your history, relationships, environment, and circumstances. This perspective allows us to approach difficult patterns with curiosity and compassion while supporting meaningful change.
People exist within families, communities, cultures, and larger social systems. We recognize how systemic forms of power can shape individual experience, and we strive to hold the relationship between both realities in our work.
Mindfulness, existential inquiry, and curiosity about unconscious processes also inform our practice. For concerns involving substance use or other behaviors, we incorporate harm reduction and emphasize safety, autonomy, and freedom from shame.
Our goal is to support your capacity for self-determination, growth, and a life aligned with what matters to you.
With empathy, curiosity, and respect for your autonomy, we are here to accompany you in your process On Becoming.
From the Founder
Living in Chicago, I spent countless hours walking along the lakefront with my dog, Bonnie. She loved the beach with an enthusiasm that was difficult to resist. On days when I might have preferred to stay home, Bonnie had other plans.
Eventually, our walks developed their own language. Our daily mile-long walks became time to walk a “nautical mile”; a small play on words for the distance we were traveling and the place we were walking. Over time, the phrase became more than a cheeky acknowledgement. The walks themselves became a ritual: a reason to get outside, to move, to notice what was around us, and simply to spend time together.
Bonnie has since passed away, but those walks remain part of how I understand the lake. The beach is a place I find beautiful, restorative, unpredictable, and sometimes dangerous. It is a holy place, a place of reverence. It is also communal and breathes deeply. You can walk alone while surrounded by other people. You can arrive holding onto one thing and leave carrying something else.
That experience eventually gave the Nautical Mile another meaning for me.
A nautical mile is a measure of distance, but a walk is also a way of moving through Life. What road am I walking? Where did it begin? Who walks alongside? What do we encounter along the way? And what meaning do we make of where we've been?
We don’t always choose the road we're given. Our histories, relationships, environments, and larger systems shape the paths available to us. But there can still be room to become curious about the direction we're moving, the patterns we carry with us, and the possibilities that emerge as we understand ourselves more deeply. Perhaps the mile ahead, though inextricably linked to the last mile, need not be so mired.
That idea is at the heart of why I created Nautical Mile Therapy.
My own path to becoming a psychotherapist was not linear. I began in community-based work, including service with the Peace Corps in South Africa, and later worked across youth services, housing, nonprofit organizations, public service, and community mental health. I initially approached social work through systems, leadership, and organizational development before increasingly gravitating toward direct clinical practice.
Refocusing my lens deepened my interest in the therapeutic relationship, meaning-making, and the ways people experience themselves within the environments and systems around them. Today, I work as a psychotherapist in both community mental health and private practice, bringing those experiences together in how I understand people and the work of therapy.
Nautical Mile is ultimately about that process: walking alongside someone as they make sense of where they've been, where they are, and what might become possible from here.
Sometimes you don't need to know exactly where you're going on the path of Becoming. It just starts with a walk.
How far will you go?
