~I consider myself a “generalist”. I see adults and older adolescents, individually or as couples, and like working with a wide range of issues and people.
Because I seek the best for my clients, I do not hesitate to discuss alternative counseling approaches when they exist. I will suggest referrals for my clients to other professionals if they need additional help or if we are not progressing in a way that is beneficial to them.
~Here are some of the issues for which clients seek me out. Included are some ways in which we may address these struggles (very simplified here!).
• Major life changes/decisions~ addressed through: Mobilizing, planning, and acting.
• Illness--chronic or acute~ addressed through: Rethinking one’s purpose.
• Interpersonal relationship difficulty & pain~ addressed through: Flexing for closeness, drift, and distance.
• Attunement and intimacy~ addressed through: Seeking a deeper joining capacity of spirit and self.
• Loss, grief, sorrow~ addressed through: Nurturing the soul into strength.
• Stress, stress, stress~ addressed through: Balancing or adapting to the “unbalanceable”.
• Alienation, emptiness, disconnectedness~ addressed through: Finding meaning, belonging, and worth.
• No sense of direction ~ addressed through: Mapping old and new paths.
• Emotional intensity, instability, or mutedness~ addressed through: Inventing dialogues with depression, anxiety, anger, etc.
• Living in the past~ addressed through: Healing toward rewriting one’s present and future (trauma/abuse etc).
• Out-of-control experiences~ addressed through: Finding freedom from obsessions, compulsions, and addictions etc.
• Unfair prejudice ~ addressed through: Defining oneself truthfully, holding firm, and pressing forward.
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~How I Came to Do What I Do
Perhaps my “training” started as far back as when I had my first realization of being an individual self. All of my experiences coming face to face with life--the tumults this often brought, my inner conflicts, losses, heartaches, and pleasures—all became woven with the structured teaching I received toward becoming a therapist. These experiences blended to add to my capacity for compassion, empathy, and insight.
Formal education and training in the field of clinical psychology built on and intertwined with who I was as a person, as well as-- of course, “growing” me into a therapist. Thus began the years of learning that followed, where I discovered how best to be of use to those who sought me out professionally.
From the beginning I always felt it a privilege to sit with my clients through deep, emotionally and intellectually intimate hours. I have seen them open themselves to searing honesty so as to better understand their lives; they have invited me, often with great courage, to enter their private worlds so as to probe for new perspectives and options.
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