Approach to Counseling Women

Your Comfort in Our Therapy Sessions is My 1^st Priority

I provide a safe and secure environment where you can share your concerns. I work to enable you to tune in to your needs and feelings, making it easier for you to express yourself and work on the problems that brought you into therapy. You’ll feel that I am on your side, walking with you as you heal and make the changes that you want in order to have a better life.

My counseling clients have told me that my personality is inviting, that I have a calm presence and that it’s easy to talk with me. Once in my counseling office, clients seem to quickly have faith that regardless of what problems they are experiencing, they will be able to overcome them eventually.

You Will Have My Undivided Attention

I offer you my focused attention in each therapy session to hear your story, discuss what has and hasn’t worked in the past, offer education about your issues, and help you develop and practice new and healthy ways of thinking, feeling and behaving.

Therapy Should Be Fun and Inspiring

While therapy is serious, I use often use humor in therapy—laughing at ourselves and our problems can be very therapeutic and make healing easier. There is no reason why therapy should have to be “heavy” or “gloomy”. It should be fun and inspiring too! To this end, while we will work on finding solutions to your problems in therapy, we will also focus on building upon your strengths. There are likely incredible skills you have developed over the years as a way of coping with your problems. In therapy, we’ll examine these skills and build on them so that you become stronger and use them to your full advantage.

You’ll Set Appropriate Boundaries and Realistic Goals

If you want to be happy and have a good life, you’ll need to set realistic expectations and appropriate boundaries for yourself and your relationships. With my help, you’ll need to get very clear on your goals and be willing to work towards achieving them. To do this, you’ll have to give up ways of being that are not serving you.

Just because you can do many things, it doesn’t mean it’s good for you to do so. Just because people and society have expectations of you, it doesn’t mean you have to fulfill them.

We’ll work together in therapy to help you let go of any “shoulds” you have taken on that prevent you from having a satisfying life. You deserve to have the life you want and be who you authentically are without pressure or guilt.

Your Role in the Counseling Process

For therapy to be effective, you must be committed to wanting a better life and be willing to work towards getting it. The deeper the problem, often the more work required in order to change it, but also the deeper the rewards will be.

You’ll have to acknowledge there is a problem and take responsibility for any part you play in maintaining the problem—otherwise it will be difficult to change. You may not be clear on what your problems are or where any responsibility for your part lies, so we’ll work together to explore these things so you can more completely heal.

While many problems may not be your “fault,” you are the only one that has control over your life and the only one who can change things for the better. Fortunately, you won’t be alone in doing this. You can be confident that I’ll be there each step of the way supporting, encouraging and challenging you to reach the goals you set for yourself.

Counseling Approaches

While I’ve been influenced by many therapy approaches there are two that that I primarily utilize in the therapy process:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Cognitive behavioral therapy examines how our thoughts impact on our feelings and behavior. I’ll help you identify thoughts, beliefs and values that you are currently living by and how they are, or are not, serving you at this point in your life. Once you are more aware of any negative thinking patterns, you’ll have more freedom to change them. I’ll help you reframe any of these unhelpful patterns of thinking and to develop a more optimistic view of yourself, your life, and your future.

Psychodynamic Therapy

Psychodynamic therapy helps you develop a deeper awareness of how your past experiences (often from childhood) effect your current life. Difficult and painful experiences often create patterns of reacting to things in protective, but unhelpful ways. You’ll have a better grasp of how your past is influencing you today, which can help you heal old wounds and be better able to choose new ways of being.

This does NOT mean we will spend time dredging up painful events that you may not want to discuss. We will deal with what is relevant to you and your problems in the here and now, and only as you want to.

As your therapist, my commitment to you is to help you make lasting, permanent improvements to you life. Sometimes this may not be easy, but I promise to be there to support and guide you through them until you achieve the goals that you want.

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