Are you feeling stuck, paralyzed even? Do you sometimes wonder if depression is giving you anxiety? Or is it your anxiety causing your depression? It's hard to tell, right? Circular thinking, intrusive thoughts, being thrown off course despite resolve is more common than you think. One feeds into the other, until you just don't know what to do, and you're probably exhausted by trying to figure it out. Therapy provides a space to speak your conflicting thoughts out loud, and a therapist can be a sounding board to help you gain some clarity into what your true goals and motivations might be, which in turn helps you establish a solid framework for decision making and creating sustainable change.
The first session tends to be low key, and fairly structured; I'll take a general history and tell you about how therapy works and something about my approach. I'm a big believer in finding the right therapist, so it's also a chance for you to get a sense of who I am as a clinician. Toward the end, I'll give a little feedback and we can discuss whether you'd like to book another session.
Therapy can be challenging, even painful at times. I believe that my greatest strength as a provider is in meeting my clients where they are. I accept you however you show up, and believe in you, even on days that you don’t.
If indecision is a problem, I'll help you figure out your options, clarify your goals, and make a plan on how to proceed.
Working with individuals experiencing acute mental health episodes showed me that the most effective therapeutic techniques are the ones that work for the client: those are the ones that will bring about sustainable changes and have a lasting positive effect.
The core of ACT is about learning to tolerate difficult feelings or thoughts, while simultaneously committing to behavior that is meaningful and aligned with one’s values. For example; Example: a person might feel anxiety before a public speech. Acceptance involves acknowledging the anxiety ("I feel anxious") without trying to suppress or escape it. This larger goal might seems impossible right now, but ACT provides us with a framework of smaller goals and skills that help us accomplish bigger things.