Main Content
Is therapy right for me?
Therapy can be an empowering and healing process that can benefit anyone.
I offer individual, couples and group counseling.
Interpersonal Issues
Processing trauma/ difficult events
Nearly everyone has a phase in life where they experience an event that is particularly difficult for them to adjust to and causes problems in their ability to engage, enjoy life, feel calm or safe and move on. For some people, such reactions are caused by loss of employment or a relationship, or by a stressor that doesn't stop being stressful or overwhelming. Others experience specific or multiple traumatic events that are beyond the brain and body's ability to absorb or make sense of.
Trauma can lead to emotional numbing, which damages one's ability to enjoy life, or to chronic re-experiencing of emotions and anxiety associated with the experience. Therapy can help you make sense of such effects and create hope that they are not permanent. I find it an honor to walk beside individuals who are ready to be supported in the work of recovery or discovering their sense of self and create a more meaningful life.
Depression
Depression can feel like a vacuum that sucks from us what we value most. Energy, hope, the ability to respond and absorb life experiences. Often depression emerges when what has once seemed doable stops responding to our normal coping methods, leaving us feeling sick, drained, alienated, and doubtful of what we can do to move forward, to regain the drive to enjoy what it means to be alive.
Likely, if you are experiencing depression, you have not felt you had the faculties, support, or meaning to work through emotions in an empowered way, causing emotions to feel more like a threat than like the immune response to stress it signifies. The good news is, most people with depression, even when it is severe, get better with treatment.
Anxiety
Anxiety is the most common psychological complaint. Luckily, it is also incredibly treatable. Often, related thoughts and sensations emerge when other emotions or needs are being suppressed. This leads to a wide variety of attempts to control physical symptoms and fears that lead to their own series of complications in life and relationships. Whether you experience chronic tension, overwhelming physical responses, OCD, panic attacks, social anxiety, phobias, or life stress, therapy offers a way through it that avoids typical unhelpful coping strategies, such as nervousness, worry, preoccupation, or substance abuse, among others.
Anxiety is often accompanied by troublesome companions, i.e. changes in sleep habits, appetite, or ability to connect with others due to ongoing feelings of fear. Counterintuitively, the very process of acknowledging the anxiety instead of avoiding it can begin to lessen it. Additionally, we may explore and in doing so begin to ameliorate your fears, understand underlying needs, and identify ways to better manage it when it comes.
Self Esteem
Our stories about ourselves and the lives we lead determine their quality. Low self-esteem is a common affliction, and while not a diagnosis, it can foster significant impairment in one's ability to function in life and appreciate it. Self-criticism is the opposite of rose-colored glasses, everything is flawed—even successes, cherished relationships, and favorite events. Shame impedes the ability to be open and trusting of our natural supports, making it difficult to attain intimacy. Conversely, compassion and a healthy self-image create resiliency when we make mistakes or experience pain in relationships.
You may have lost touch with your own intrinsic value by buying into toxic beliefs of others, undervaluing your strengths or being trained to forego compassion for your own experiences, even though you might have it for others in a similar predicament. Contrary to traditional views about tough love and coddling, compassion for our own struggles is a powerful and motivating force I have repeatedly seen enable people to push past barriers in attaining happiness and other goals.
My Approach
I believe that individuals seek therapy because they want assistance in order to make life changes, try new behaviors, and learn to heal and grow. Often, these changes are precipitated by a crisis that demands such growth. I support and encourage clients to gather and bolster their intellectual, emotional, and spiritual resources in order to help them with the problems that they are struggling with and free them to create new ways of thinking and believing. As we work together, we will focus on the presenting issue, your previous attempts to cope with it, your feelings about the issue, and possible alternative actions and their consequences. There may be occasions where we utilize more than one approach or technique depending on a client’s goals and comfort level.
I believe that factors pertinent to effective therapy may include unresolved issues with a client’s family of origin, a lack of interpersonal/ communication skills, an unhealthy internalized view of self or others, and unprocessed psychological trauma. I view therapy as a process of helping people figure out what is stopping them from experiencing a sense of well-being through a combination of assessment, identification of what is aggravating a problem, skill-building, and education re: psychology. At times, I may move from one modality to another. I will likely use cognitive techniques to help you think differently about yourself and your situation, and insight and interpretive techniques to help you understand yourself and your emotions better. While I typically focus on the individual, I occasionally invite family members or partners into a session to work on specific issues. I seldom work with children, but when I do, I use play, art, and other expressive therapies as a way to facilitate communication. I offer parenting information and communication tools, as needed, to parents.
Contact Me
Call (253) 246-1554 for a 15-minute complimentary phone session or
Fill out the email form to schedule a 30 minute complimentary in-person appointment
