Hi, I'm Renee. Do you want to improve the quality of you life? Whether it be work related stress, motivation issues, anxiety, or frustrating relationships, I will work with you to identify what lifestyle factors and areas of growth can help you increase your confidence and reduce your stress levels. I also work with couples who are experiencing communication issues, unmet needs, and feeling lonely within the relationship, so that you can reconnect with your partner and feel valued, seen, and supported. Using a blend of Positive Psychology and Trauma-Informed Care, I work with clients to reclaim their sense of empowerment so they can feel like their best selves again.
What can clients expect to take away from sessions with you?
In our first session, we'll get to know each other and begin to dive into what you'd like to work on in therapy. What brings you to therapy? What are your goals? How will you know that therapy is working for you? Working with you, we will come up with a plan to help you reach your goals.
Explain to clients what areas you feel are your biggest strengths.
I'm good at listening to what you're saying and connecting the dots so that you feel understood and empowered to find the solutions that work for you. In our sessions we will (1) discuss and gain clarity about what is bringing you to therapy, (2) determine the root causes and influences that impact your life in negative ways, and (3) begin implementing and optimizing desired change.
Describe the client(s) you are best positioned to serve.
I work with a wide range of individuals, young professionals charting their way forward, individuals who may be experiencing the signs and symptoms of burn-out at home or in the office, and those who are braving their way towards retirment. My work spans the many stages of adulthood as each stage of the life cycle presents its own challenges and opportunities.
About Renee Ketchum
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VirtualMy treatment methods
Dialectical Behavior (DBT)
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) helps a person begin to regulate their nervous system in two ways, 1) through mindfulness and training the brain to gain and maintain more calm, and 2) by providing an neurobiological explanation for how the interventions create new behavioral patterns that improve one's relationship with themselves and others.
Mindfulness-Based Therapy
Mindfulness Based Therapies and Interventions help us to slow down, identify what we are thinking and feeling so that we can better attune to our own emotional needs. Moving out of survival, out of distracting and coping and into the deep healing of learning how to be with ourselves in a way that creates space for the overwhelm, we learn how to be with ourselves in an empowered way. Creating a safe space within where we do not feel lonely or isolated, but able to be there for ourselves so that we can rest, restore, fill our cup. This is the work of self-regulation, of improving executive function, focus, concentration, and cultivating restoring and healing from within. Bringing awareness to our experience, both of our private, internal world, and the shared experience of the external world, be begin to gather information about what works and what doesn't work in our lives. Blending practicality and kindness as we attend to "what is happening" or, reality on it's own terms, we build up the strength and fortitude to manage the storms and stressors of life while staying a little more true to the nature of our best selves. Finding the ability to turn down the sympathetic response of the nervous system and get back into a relaxed, rested state means we can show up in our integrity more often.
Positive Psychology
Positive Psychology is an under-used tool in the therapist's tool belt; often times we can become very problem focused, and need to take a step back and focus on our strengths. As we being to bring awareness to the positive relationships in our life, and ask ourselves when we feel engaged in life, when do we feel happy, what gives us meaning, and what is our vision for our future, we can begin to create systems to support feeling good in our day-to-day lives. Learning how to focus on and cultivate positive feelings is a skill that takes practice!
Motivational Interviewing
Drawing from Motivational Interviewing listening skills, I both use and teach the OARS interventions to my clients. So often we want to connect on a deeper level with others, get out of conflict, and stay on the same team with our loved ones. But we don’t know how to listen. So often we listen with the intent to respond, waiting for our turn to make our point, our counter argument, explain our position. We want to be heard, and yet, paradoxically, the best way to be heard is to listen. By developing comprehensive listening skills, we can begin to understand others, and as we understand them, we begin to empathize. Using Open Ended Questions, we explore what another person is thinking, their perspective, and as we ask questions, they think through what they are trying to communicate. Using affirmations, we do not need to agree with them but affirm their feelings; so often people feel invalidated and dismissed because they need simple affirmation about why their feelings make sense because of the way they are thinking and feeling. Reflective listening is when we listen hard to what the other person is saying so that we can like a mirror reflect back to them what they said to us. This is so important because if we can verbalize what others are saying to us, we aren’t able to hear them fully. And summaries, this is where we can connect the dots of what others are telling us, creating a larger reflection that paints the full picture of what was communicated. Helping others feel heard is the first step of forming safe, warm bonds.
Attachment-based
Attachment-based therapy focuses on understanding a how our historical attachment style with parents or caregivers impacts our friendships and romantic relationships in the present. Through that lens we can begin to process and understand what you want and need in an intimate relationship, and in relationships in general. We look at how your communication style impacts the quality of your relationships, and how your ability to experience discomfort and vulnerability may be holding you back from connecting on a more satisfying level. As an addition to Attachment based therapy, I will draw from Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) which is a great model for both individuals and couples to begin to understand their attachment style, their needs and wants, and how they communicate under pressure. When we have a greater context for understanding our wants, needs, communication style, responses to stress, and our histories, we begin to understand how and why things might get off track with others.