LCSW, 13 years of experience
New to Grow
You want to change your feelings, thoughts, or behaviors, but every time you try, it blows up in your face. (Not literally...hopefully.) How do you get unstuck?! The most important factor is the relationship with your therapist. My main focus is teaming up with you - not telling you what to do - to figure out how to help you create new patterns. My practice mostly revolves around increasing your awareness of what’s happening in your mind and your body – and above all, respecting your experience. My approach focuses on mindfulness, DBT, and post-traumatic growth. This takes work, but with the help of someone you trust, you absolutely can change the structure of your brain! As much as I may be in the most privileged of demographics (see photo), I’ve taken a lifetime’s worth of feeling inferior and deployed it for good: Being able to empathize with you, the client. I've worked extensively with anger, grief, substance use, LGBTQ+-related issues, insomnia, racial identity, relationship issues, sports performance, etc. I have an easygoing way of communicating with clients. My communication style definitely doesn't have that solemn, overly serious tone that you might see depicted in movie therapists. Just to forewarn: My sessions can and will include some (very lame) jokes here and there, but that does not mean I don't take your struggle seriously.
In the first session with me, you can expect mostly listening and a bit of guidance here and there. I also go with the flow. So I might ask the standard questions - "What brings you to therapy?" or "What are your goals?"...or I might just work with what you've brought to Session #1, say, if you've had a particularly noteworthy day. Either way, it informs the process, and we'll both have a better feel for what we can work on together.
I'm a human being first, and I don't take myself too seriously. This means that it's most important that we both feel a connection, and that connection so often happens through laughing about our own human-ness. If I make a mistake, I'll be the first to admit it - and I encourage you to point out when I do! Another thing to know about me is that I love my 0-10 scales. I'll often ask about how your anxiety, life satisfaction, or anger is on a 0-10 scale, because it can help to see how you progress in concrete terms. And while I encourage my clients not to over-apologize...I do apologize in advance for going back to this 0-10 well again and again.
My ideal client is someone who is ready to make a change in their life. However, don't be scared away if you're feeling not-so-motivated; depression has a way of eating away at your motivation, and just the fact that you're here tells me a significant part of you is inspired enough to make a change. I support my clients' needs by holding them accountable for the work that needs to be done, but in an understanding way. There is always a reason why you did or didn't work on the homework - yes, I have a tendency to assign homework - and it's not due to a lack of "willpower." We're here to figure out how to best set yourself up for success, and we'll act as a team in doing so. You are the best expert on yourself; I'm just here to help you access more of yourself.
While I am informed by a variety of approaches - e.g. DBT, motivational interviewing, psychodynamic - I am a big believer in the power of mindfulness to help us productively process the thoughts and feelings that keep us stuck. The more time we spend nonjudgmentally in the present, the better results we can expect.
I like that DBT offers more "bottom-up" ways of approaching a challenge than, say, CBT. I'll offer to go over various emotion regulation and distress tolerance activities to help clients better manage stress, as opposed to attempting to ignore or push away unpleasant experiences.
Sometimes, a client's experience calls for more concrete, action-based solutions. I use this approach when it comes to short-term goals, like how to get yourself to go to the gym, or finish a particular project, by eliciting the strengths that a client already possesses. In other words, you have the power to change your habits - you just may not see the path just yet.