Individual Therapy
In individual therapy, we get to work it out together.
Many of the clients who find their way to my practice have been struggling with difficult feelings long before they reach out. Not only that, but suffering with them alone.
As a result, one of the first things they report is feeling burdened by symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Big feelings are simply big feelings.
But when they have nowhere to go, our nervous systems sound the alarm in search for help. This is why unattended fear and doubt or grief and loss can morph into things like obsessive worry or pervasive sadness.
We simply are not wired to feel what is big and difficult alone.
But few of us have early childhood experiences that promote having a relationship to our feelings.
The story I often hear when I ask how feelings were met is “Well, I was told I was too sensitive” or “They just never knew to care.”
When we know there are available, loving arms free of judgment that can hold us close when we feel hurt or injured, we find the capacity inside ourselves to be vulnerable with our pain and come into relationship to what is challenging.
Even better, when we get to do this often, we gain greater flexibility to be human, as life is not without its ruptures and traumas. We also grow to know and trust ourselves. We become resilient against depression and anxiety.
In therapy, we can work together to build a relationship in which you feel secure and seen, so that you can start to feel the emotion, and my caring of you in relationship to it, to ultimately transform your pain.
Many of the individuals I see are wanting to address (among other issues) their:
—Anxiety
—Depression
—Relational/Developmental Trauma
—Addiction to people, places, or things
—Phase of life transitions (including getting married, having a baby, coming of any age, divorce)
—Lack of self-trust and self doubt
I aim to be culturally responsive, sensitive to the needs of my LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC clients. I let my clients inform me about who they are and how they identify, but I also seek to broaden my knowledge on client experiences.
I’m trained in both attachment-based and psychodynamic theories, so our work together is rooted in knowing our relationship matters, and because of that, you can begin to have an inner relationship with yourself. In any given session, we might spend time identifying and reframing false narratives, looking at the metaphors underneath symptoms, and exploring past childhood experiences.
My clients often say I’m deeply engaged in session. I take an active role in caring about you and what you want to explore. I believe it’s the love in the room that makes change possible, but not just because I care. It’s in the experiencing that clients feel freed up to take full responsibility for their lives.
Clients move from being able to identify symptoms and their root causes related to emotion to transforming their knowing into self-trust. This knowing allows for clients to freely feel their joy, exercise their gifts, and offer themselves to the world.
"I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall—
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do."
Mary Oliver