More on Haley

The story.

I was raised in Austin, TX, as the oldest of three daughters. I lived in Austin until moving to Houston to begin my PhD journey. Growing up, both explicit and implicit messages instilled in me the belief that anything less than perfection wasn’t good enough.

By the time I got to high school, I was bending over backward, trying to make straight A’s, maintain my spot on the varsity track team, and run for student council while hiding my exhaustion and anxiety behind my “shiny, happy Haley” facade. By college, I was bone-tired, lonely, drowning in anxiety, and had completely lost sight of who I was when I wasn’t pretending to be shiny, happy Haley.

Not only was college-aged, shiny, happy Haley in the business of abandoning her needs, but she didn’t even know what they were. I was on people-pleasing autopilot, relating to myself from a place of rigidity and control and to others from a place of conflict avoidance and compliance.

It wasn’t until I was too tired to pretend after losing someone I loved to cancer that I began the long journey of discovering myself and building the beautiful, meaningful relationships I still hold close to my heart today.

Forced to confront the finiteness of my existence and overcome by grief and anxiety, I began to wrestle with the existential issues of meaning, isolation, and freedom. I rearranged my priorities to feature experiences that made me feel alive and known and set my soul on fire. Investment in deeper relationships emerged as the most meaningful of these experiences.

These pieces of my story, combined with my work as a budding clinical psychologist over the past five years, have made the therapeutic relationship the bedrock of my therapeutic approach. I value connection, transparency, and unconditional acceptance in my personal and therapeutic relationships. Having been healed firsthand by know-you-to-core connections, I view the therapeutic relationship as an opportunity to harness the power of authentic human connection to help clients realize how much they matter and how meaningful their lives are.

My training.

I received my BA in Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin, and my MA and PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Houston. I am a Licensed Psychological Associate, finishing my postdoc hours as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Modern Therapy to obtain full licensure as a Clinical Psychologist. My formative clinical training experiences have been engaging with clients through depth-oriented interpersonal psychotherapy within community-based and university counseling center settings. I am also trained and honored to work with clients who hold diverse racial, sexual, gender, and cultural identities.

My commitment.

I am committed to walking alongside you down the hallways of your own house as you discover and come to love the rooms you’ve never been in and the unknown pieces of yourself. I am committed to entering into a deep, transparent, and real relationship with you.

To be curious, honest, direct, and genuine. To challenge you and help you see things from a different perspective. To hold space for your emotions, your dreams, and your sorrows. To ask questions when I don’t understand. To walk a mile in your shoes. I am committed to meeting you where you are and giving you everything I’ve got.