My approach to therapy.

Whether you’ve been to therapy before or it’s your first time, it can be difficult to open up to someone you’ve never met. That’s why at the outset of therapy, it’s important for me to create a safe and affirming space to learn about you and connect with your experience. These initial sessions are essential for treatment planning.

Once we’ve identified treatment goals, we work collaboratively to identify how past experiences or current thoughts, feelings, and circumstances may contribute to your distress. As therapy progresses, you may gain more insight into not only what causes you pain or anxiety, but why. As you’re learning more about yourself and taking ownership of your thoughts and feelings, we explore new perspectives that assist you in effectively adapting to the challenges in your life.

My approach to both couples and individual therapy is relational in nature. This means that once we’ve built trust and a sense of comfort, I explore how you experience relationships both in and outside the therapy room. Sometimes the way we interact with our therapist mirrors how we react to others. Thus, discussing the therapy relationship opens doors to understanding how you may relate to other important people in your life and provides opportunities to try new ways of relating in general. These might include building stronger connections with important people, trusting the right people, setting boundaries in a toxic relationship, or decreasing social anxiety.

As you begin to edge closer to your treatment goals, I assist you in maintaining the progress you’ve gained by identifying strengths that keep you resilient in the face of new challenges post-therapy.