Individual Therapy
I believe that symptoms – whether physical or emotional – are our bodies’ way of trying to get our attention.
They tell us something isn’t right in our lives. So, whether it is anxiety, depression, chronic fatigue or pain, insomnia, nightmares, fights with your spouse, hatred of your body, binge eating, lack of motivation, losing it with your kids… I’ll be listening for root causes.
There is a balance between gaining coping skills for your symptom and resolving the underlying issue creating the symptom. It’s a lot like taking aspirin. It helps in the moment, and can be a lifesaver if you have a headache, but it doesn’t keep them from coming back. So aspirin might be fine for an occasional headache, but not for chronic ones. Similarly, I can (and will!) teach you ways to manage symptoms such as anxiety, but often the path to healing involves going deeper, and we will do that, too.
Particularly when treating trauma, the latest research has shown that talk therapy is not enough – the body has to be involved. So, in addition to talk therapy, I use a variety of alternative evidence-based mind-body approaches. I have found they are extremely powerful for putting painful experiences (and their aftereffects) to rest. What happened does not change, but your posture towards them does, which makes all the difference.
Things I can help with:
Understanding how central shame resilience is to mental health and how to grow in it.
Organizing your thoughts and feelings on difficult decisions.
Trusting your gut and doing what’s best for you, in spite of what others might be saying.
Coaching you to be more assertive and protecting yourself with better boundaries.
Releasing stubborn negative thoughts about yourself, such as feeling “not good enough”and hating your body.
Decreasing self-sabotaging choices and addictive urges, such as impulsive spending, procrastinating, and binge eating.
Understanding and changing unhealthy or unsatisfying patterns of sexual behavior.
Coping with the stress of taking care of an aging parent.
Finding the balance between accepting your parenting mistakes and growing into being the parent you want to be.
Leveraging your high sensitivity for good in the world and learning how to cope with its challenges in a fast-paced, extroverted culture.
Resolving traumatic memories that cause anxiety, depression, insomnia, hypervigilance, flashbacks, and chronic shame-based thoughts.
“We imagine what we desire;
we will what we imagine;
and at last we create what we will.”
— George Bernard Shaw
