Authenticity.

It is truly one of the honors of my life to have been invited (or allowed) to come alongside hundreds of children, youth, and adults as they work to understand and address issues that have caused them considerable distress. By providing a safe, compassionate, and therapeutic relationship, I am able to then offer clients tools, strategies, and perspectives to help them better navigate life. 

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Compassion.

Psychotherapy with me is really best understood as relationship work. Most often this is changing the relationship clients have with themselves, their identities, and with important others in their lives. Too often we have learned to fight, bully, abuse, or neglect ourself. This keeps us from treating ourselves the way we would need and want to be treated.

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Fortitude.

Therapy is important and life changing work. It is WORK though. Most often we have to get uncomfortable enough that we are motivated to do and try different things, and then to keep trying until the changes stick. That means practice and therapy exercises between sessions, to build the psychological conditioning that retrains our mind and brain to remediate and resolve symptoms.

 

Knowledge.

When therapy is going well, the client and I are learning together. I am typically offering a framework for looking more closely at those situations, emotions, thoughts, and habits that are just not working or helpful to the client. As they teach me about their difficulties, I get to notice things they may not have noticed, and work with them develop new perspectives as they come to know themselves, their history, and their relationships more deeply. 

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Practicality.

My aim is to provide clients with the therapeutic supports and tools that they can use to navigate the current and future difficulties. The job of a therapist is both important and temporary. Most clients have made 90 percent of the progress they will make toward their therapy goals with a provider within 26-30 sessions, many make this progress much more quickly. I want my clients to leave therapy knowing they have done good work, and can successfully address their problems with therapy, when needed. As they complete therapy, clients know they can always reach back out to me or another therapist, and by graduating it allows me to continue to work with others who are also suffering.