Individual Therapy

People often choose consult with a therapist for a number of reasons at multiple times in their lives. You may be interested in seeking therapy as a tool to facilitate changes to an immediate life stressor or to establish a longer-term relationship with a professional as you navigate multiple challenges or life transitions.

We tailor sessions to your specific needs and are committed to fostering hope that change is possible- you just need support to make it happen! Rather than problematizing you as an individual, our therapeutic approach works to identify and understand the history, interpersonal dynamics and context that creates and exacerbates the problems or challenges which you are facing. From our very first session, we will collaboratively identify goals and areas of focus that reflect the changes you would like to make in your life. You will leave each session with new tools, strategies and perspectives to address challenges and enrich your life and relationships.

We believe that the therapeutic process has the potential to empower people to take on the challenges they face in their lives and to create the changes they wish to make. Common reasons that people seek therapy can include:

Pandemic Support

If your mental health and quality of life have been significantly impacted by the pandemic, you are not alone. Our day-to day lives have changed significantly. The tools, strategies and sources of support we used to rely on to see us through challenges are not as effective as they used to be. Therapy can help you to better address and overcome pandemic-related challenges such as:

• Low motivation or feeling stuck
• Isolation
• Loss of, or fear of losing loved ones
• Loss of employment or new employment stressors
• Loss of previously important activities and outlets for managing stress
• Stressors related to differing approaches of friends and family to pandemic-related precautions such as social distancing, mask wearing, gatherings and vaccination
• Stressors related to front-line work
• Childcare/education responsibilities
• Co-parenting challenges
• Overwhelming fear, feelings of dread, detachment or overwhelm
• Relationship/marital distress
• Trouble setting goals and/or disappointment from not reaching pre-pandemic goals

Stress Management

Is stress taking over your life? Are you losing sleep or feeling consumed and overwhelmed by stressors that you used to be able to cope with? Has a new stressor emerged and you don’t know how to handle it? Are you finding yourself seeking relief in alcohol or other substances, food or shopping?

Therapy can support you to develop new and more successful coping and stress management strategies that help you to navigate current stressors. Therapy can also help you to manage, reduce or prevent new stressors before they become overwhelming. Through the therapy process, we will work together to understand the sources of stress that you are experiencing and you will leave each session with new tools and strategies to address these stressors and reclaim balance in your life.

Depression and Anxiety

Depression and anxiety can significantly impact our day-to-day lives. Whether you experience symptoms of depression or anxiety as the direct result of a current stressor or life circumstance— or they have been a recurrent part of your life—therapy can help you to reclaim your life from depression and anxiety.

Depression can make it hard to get out of bed, enjoy things that once brought a smile to your face, and connect with those that you care about. It can leave you feeling isolated, unmotivated and stuck. Your future can seem dark and uncertain, and you may feel powerless to change things. You may even feel like giving up. It doesn’t have to be this way. Therapy can help you to address the effects of depression, to feel better, and to take back your life and hope for the future.

Anxiety can fill us with a sense of worry and dread that makes it challenging to face new experiences and can stop us from enjoying our day-to-day lives. Tasks like sending an email or making a phone call can be so overwhelming that we stop ourselves or delay their completion. It can feel so uncomfortable to accomplish day-to-day responsibilities that we start to get behind or overwhelmed with everything that we need to accomplish. Therapy for anxiety can help you to develop strategies to take on anxiety and accomplish your goals.

Creating and Navigating Change

Do you need to make a change but feel overwhelmed with where to start? Has a significant and unexpected change occurred and you are feeling unsure about how to navigate it? Is change coming and you want to take it on proactively? Life consistently involves change but that doesn’t mean we are prepared for it! Therapy can help you to create the changes to want to see in your life in purposeful, meaningful and intentional ways.

If you are feeling stuck with how to make a needed change, we will first work together to explore and build your motivation for change. We will identify your hopes related to what you want change to bring and set specific goals which reflect those hopes. We will then identify the resources, support and information you need to successfully initiate and implement change. Lastly, we will process your feelings and experiences throughout the change process in order to ensure that your motivation remains high, barriers to change are promptly addressed, and that you meet your goals for change within a timeframe that works best for you.

Common life changes that therapy can help support include:

• Career change
• Relationship change (preparing for a new relationship, shifting relationship dynamics or agreements, separation or divorce)
• Relocation
• Transition to parenthood
• Health/lifestyle
• Education
• Empty nest/children leaving the home
• Organization/time management
• Self care

Anger Management

Is anger causing significant problems at home or at work? Do you feel like you go from “0-100” or “see red” when you get upset? Do you find yourself feeling regretful of how you handled things after a significant conflict? Therapy for anger management can help you to learn how to successfully deal with overwhelming emotions such as anger and effectively respond rather than react to upsetting situations. Specifically, therapy for anger management will help you to better understand the sources of your frustrations and to explore the effects of the ways that you have learned to deal with anger in your past. You will learn tools and strategies to de-escalate situations as well as effective and empowering ways to understand your feelings and communicate them to others.

Self Esteem

Do you regularly hold yourself back from accomplishing what you want in life with your own or other’s beliefs about your self-worth, abilities, or intelligence? Do you defer to other’s needs or regularly put them in front of your own because deep down you feel that you don’t deserve to put your needs first? Do you hesitate to share your thoughts and ideas or try new things because you are afraid that you will be embarrassed or looked down upon by others? If you answered yes to any of these questions, therapy can support you in challenging these beliefs that limit what is possible for you and your life and empower you to become more assertive with others.

Through the therapeutic process, we will collaboratively identify and explore the effects of socialization practices which have resulted in a devaluing of your personhood. These notions may have even been perpetuated by important figures in your life such as caregivers, family members, your employer, and/or a partner. We will identify how you have internalized these powerful messages and how they have shaped your life and undermined your confidence. Therapy will support you in developing and using your voice, identifying and communicating your own needs and priorities, setting boundaries and expectations with others, and developing relationships and support systems which are mutually respectful and honoring of your personhood, choices, hopes and dreams.

Lifestyle Changes

Do you find yourself engaging in habits or behaviors that you feel are unhealthy or counterproductive to your overall goals? Has your doctor told you that it is time to take needed action to improve your health? Does your partner express concern or complain that you have said you will make changes but still haven’t done so? Have you attempted to make these changes in the past only to find yourself back at square one? If so, therapy can support you in making your desired lifestyle changes in thoughtful and intentional ways. Common lifestyle changes that can be supported through therapy include:

• Improved work/life balance
• Organization/time management
• Development of preferred stress management and coping strategies
• Reducing or abstaining from substance use
• Dietary and fitness practices
• Improved accountability and follow through with commitments
• Integrating daily/weekly self care strategies

Grief and Loss

Health Issues

Body Image

Motivation

Substance Abuse

Divorce or Separation

Going through a separation or divorce can be an extremely challenging time. Whether the decision to end the relationship was a mutual one or not, you are likely experiencing a range of overwhelming emotions as well as facing complicated decisions and an uncertain future. You and your ex may be at odds about how to handle separation of assets, child custody and parenting decisions, or even if more can be done to save the relationship. Infidelity, new relationships, or other challenges may be further complicating the process. Your friends and family have likely weighed in with their opinions which may—or may not be helpful. Therapy can support you to navigate your feelings and experiences throughout the separation or divorce process and help you to create a vision of your future that instills comfort, hope and confidence.