There is nothing wrong with you! This is the first and possibly the most surprising thing you will learn from me. You will also learn that it is true, and that will be the most freeing thing you will ever learn from anyone. In our very first session, expect to be HEARD and SEEN. Clients often come in with diagnoses already tacked onto them. Depression, anxiety, and/or severe adjustment disorders are often part of the stories they tell me about themselves. I have tremendous compassion for you. I am not interested in the negative labels or self-defeating stories that you have been carrying around like heavy burdens. I am interested in going right through them and discovering who YOU are.

What can clients expect to take away from sessions with you?

In our very first session, expect to be HEARD and SEEN. Not through the lenses of your "problems" and/or "symptoms." They provide us with useful information, but they are not YOU! I will look through them to see YOU, and I will value what I see. Expect to feel valued, then, because you will be.

Explain to clients what areas you feel are your biggest strengths.

That psychotherapy is a “helping profession” is not news. What it has been helpful FOR, however, has often been to learn how to live within the limits of externally imposed standardizations of “normal”-- in order to be ”mentally healthy, of course”-- which in turn was supposed to “make you happier.” And if it didn’t, you were given a “diagnosis”– you were pathologized, in other words-- which by definition means branded as “psychologically abnormal or unhealthy.” Does any of that sound familiar? Well, it is a description of what you will NOT get from me! Although learning to live more comfortably within the boundaries of cultural norms may indeed, feel helpful, it is like taking medication to numb symptoms that are trying to tell you what is WRONG. I will hear your symptoms. They have their own language. In my 30+ years as a psychotherapist, I have become very good at decoding and understanding the language of symptoms. I will is listen to your symptoms, and trust them. LISTEN to you. SEE you. Trust YOU. Together, we will journey deep inside you and find all kinds of wonderful things as we uncover your uniqueness. We'll discover resources, strengths, and gifts within you that you never knew you had. We will help you find and LIVE the kind of life that suits you, and so brings you joy. Won't that be wonderful? “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” ― J. Krishnamurti

About Judith Dagley Flaherty