Who you are
You have experienced some, or many, moments that felt overwhelming or unbearable and left you feeling helpless or powerless, isolated or disconnected from other people as well as from yourself. This may have looked like growing up with caretakers who were immature, emotionally unavailable, rejecting, critical, unpredictable or mentally unstable. It may have involved varying degrees of neglect or [emotional, verbal, physical or sexual] abuse at some point during your childhood and teenage years, the sudden and unexpected loss of someone significant through death or divorce/separation, or chronic rejection or bullying by peers or siblings. You coped with these events by being the “good girl/boy” you were expected to be. By doing your best to control your grades, your appearance, taking care of the people around you, being pleasing, trying your best to not be “too sensitive” and avoiding getting into trouble in general.
Now that you’re an adult you find yourself struggling in relationships, both with other people and with yourself. You’re so used to taking care of other people that it feels impossible to say the hard things, to share what you want, what you need, and to be clear about the things you don’t want or need. You may have found yourself in one, or a couple of unhealthy romantic relationships or friendships, you might be avoiding relationships altogether, or you might be experiencing frequent shifts in your feelings about your current relationships. Maybe it feels like you’re under constant pressure from your boss or like you’re an easy target for your family and like you’ll always be stuck in these types of relationships. You constantly worry or beat yourself up about making mistakes, wishing you said or did things differently, perfectly. It’s hard for you to recover after a disagreement or after making a mistake; your emotions seem to escape your control and it takes forever to feel calm or ok again. People who know you well have told you or made you feel like your emotions are too much, too intense. Although you hold a rational belief that you should be treated well and have value, you sometimes slip back into doubting whether you truly deserve good things. You have tried your best to put your past behind you, but it’s hard to feel optimistic when you often find yourself feeling like you did when you were a kid.
If this sounds like you and you feel ready for change, Click HERE to schedule an initial consultation appointment. Let’s figure out whether I’m the right therapist for you.
How I can help
Whether you are struggling with negative feelings toward yourself, dissatisfaction with relationships, your career, or are having difficulty letting go of the past, experiencing fear about the future, or simply feeling stuck in current circumstances, psychotherapy can bring about needed change. To achieve this, therapy may involve finding meaning and purpose, establishing or recovering a connection to your inner emotional world and/or important people around you, processing and recovering from emotional wounds or formulating a concrete plan of action and working on it together step by step.
I do not take a one-size-fits-all approach to therapy and as a result tailor treatment to suit specific client needs. My goal is to create a safe, trusting, and non-judgmental therapeutic relationship within which you can get to know yourself and develop the clarity needed to make better decisions, implement change, live more peacefully and feel in control of your life.