Dennis Pottenger
As someone who has struggled with self-esteem and identity issues, I can help you re-frame self-defeating thoughts, resolve unconscious inner conflicts, and learn to value and trust your own experience. Therapy can help you feel more authentic, alive, and confident. I don't have the answers for anyone.
As someone who has struggled with self-esteem and identity issues, I can help you re-frame self-defeating thoughts, resolve unconscious inner conflicts, and learn to value and trust your own experience.
What I might be able to help with are the questions you may have if you experience anxiety, depressed mood, conflict in your relationship, or if you find feeling good about yourself to be a challenge you can't quite resolve on your own. It takes courage to ask for help. No one really likes feeling vulnerable, including me. But being vulnerable with another person, and with ourselves, is a proven way to repair unhealed wounds and repair the damage life causes.
First session
Most people are nervous at the first session. This is normal. After all, you're about to expose yourself to someone you don't know--and to yourself--in a way most of us are not be used to. At the first session I'll welcome you into a private space where you can begin to look at your life without judgment from me. To help you get started I'll ask you what it's like to be in my office. This open-ended question invites you to become more aware of your own experience--what you're thinking and feeling. In the first session we'll look together at whatever you've come to talk about. My role is to listen and see if I can understand what it's like to be you so you can see if there is the beginning of a positive working relationship.
Strengths
I excel at helping you sit with what hurts as we work together to reclaim the real you--the part of you that may have been hurt in your family and now needs to be valued and cared for. I believe we find our gift in our wound. I'll host a safe space for you to show up in your life as the best version of yourself.
Ideal clients
As a step-parent to adult children of color, I'm especially sensitive to issues related to race, gender, and identity. Our western patriarchal culture injures both men and women. If you've been hurt deeply, through trauma, or through experiences of marginalization and misogyny, therapy is a protected space for repair and healing.
Treatment methods
Humanistic
A humanistic approach helps you stay present to yourself in the moment in a bid to help you become more aware of your own experience. Humanism focuses on self-esteem which is created when there is congruency between our values (what we think and believe) and our actions. When our values and actions are aligned we feel good about ourselves and hopeful about our life even in the face of challenges.
Jungian
Jungian psychology views the psyche as an energetic system where unconscious energies—when encountered by consciousness—propel transformation and growth. From a Jungian perspective, symptoms are not problems to be fixed but invitations to attend to anxiety or depressed mood as the indication that a part of us needs attention and support. In other words we turn toward what hurts instead of deny or ignore discomfort. By attending to discomfort we learn to care for the parts of our personality that may feel wounded, uncertain, or uncared for.
Location
Virtual sessions
In-person sessions5150 N 6th St, Fresno, CA 93710, Suite 115
Identifies as
Top specialties
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Serves
Licensed in
- CaliforniaLicense 53270