ABOUT THERAPY
We all experience unavoidable, painful challenges in life. Sometimes we are able to navigate on our own, but other times we get stuck in painful emotions and thoughts that keep us from participating in the life we want.
Typical problems might include:
- Problems in our primary relationships,
- Divorce or separation,
- Loss of a loved one
- Health, aging, or body changes,
- Role changes within family relationships, such as children leaving home or aging parents,
- Concerns about the state of the world,
- Work conflicts, job loss, or dissatisfaction,
- Difficulties with loneliness or social isolation.
Therapy can provide a safe, confidential, and nonjudgemental space to work through these concerns.
MY APPROACH
There are two pathways in therapy. One is to find ways to solve problems, the other is learn to cope or accept life’s difficulties. Rather than trying to get rid of unpleasant experiences I want you to have more awareness of your thoughts and feelings, and better understand how you respond to them. Values are the blueprint of our life’s journey so we need to discover what is important to you; what kind of person you want to be, how best to meet new challenges or old difficulties, how do you want to be in the world. We’ll then look at behaviors that are consistent with those values. Last of all, we would focus on skills to help you co-exist or change your situation to match your values.
My work focuses on the following:
- Developing an understanding of problems and concerns,
- Becoming aware of underlying thoughts and feelings and how they impact your behavior,
- Identifying values or what kind of person you want to be,
- Identifying behaviors that represent those values and how to take action to make them happen,
- Learning new skills,
- Accepting and living with the reality of sometimes unavoidable painful experiences.
An example: A new parent is feeling anxious and is having thoughts about their lack of parenting skills. Even though their core value is to be loving and emotionally present with family, the response to this might be to avoid spending time with family. The truth is that all parents feel anxious and inadequate at some point. So the focus would be finding ways to live with these unpleasant thoughts and feelings while still behaving in a way that is consistent with values.
This type of therapy relies heavily on client participation. In order to make the best use of treatment it is important that clients make time to practice exercises that we have agreed upon in session.
I also depend on your feedback about the therapy experience so that we can fine tune our sessions. This might include talking about your feelings toward the therapeutic relationship and approach, and whether you feel progress is being made.
WHAT TO EXPECT IN THE INITIAL APPOINTMENT
We will explore your present day concerns together and seek to understand their impact on your life. We’ll learn about how long you have been experiencing these problems and how you have tried to cope with or resolve them, working on discovering what you want from therapy and clarifying your direction. If it doesn’t feel like a good fit, we can talk about that and either address your concerns or look at alternative avenues for treatment. If it feels as though we can work together, we’ll spend our next few sessions developing a flexible plan for how we might work together to meet your expectations.