Individual Therapy

“We make ourselves real by telling the truth.”
Thomas Merton

Our therapeutic journey is one that is as unique as you and any trip or adventure, so I cannot truly describe where we will go or how it will feel, much less guarantee any experience or outcome for you. I can only express what I sincerely desire to offer you along the journey: respectful listening, searching for solutions, and increasing your emotional freedom.

Respectful Listening—that is where I will start with you-regardless of your issues. Listening to understand, to really understand, and validate your point of view. I will reflect and summarize what I am hearing, and ask thoughtful questions to help you express yourself clearly and honestly-getting us closer to the heart of the matter. All of this is foundational counseling (based on “Motivational Interviewing”) though it takes dedication and focus-from both of us-to do this well.

Searching for solutions—this is where we may go next, after we have established a good foundation of understanding. Sometimes there are relatively simple solutions (though not necessarily easy) right under our noses-if only we can see them and find the courage to try to apply them to a tricky situation. I will collaboratively search with you for these solutions-whether they are near or far-and help you customize a possible solution that you are ready to try for yourself.

Emotional Freedom—this is the deep end of the pool, the real work of identifying and untangling the emotional, cognitive, and interpersonal knots we have developed in our heads, hearts, and relationships. Simply identifying them is challenging enough, though provides some liberation itself. Untying these knots is quite challenging and often takes many months (or years) to do really well. My goal will not be to untie all of your knots comprehensively or perfectly, but to get you started on this process, so you can do more on your own over time. My goal is to help you find more emotional freedom-the ability to say a clear yes to the joys and sorrows of your life; a clear no to things that are not healthy for you; and the ability to carve out time and space to figure-out all the complex, ambiguous issues in life that have no easy answers.

“It is not enough to create a new language of therapy for your clients–you must create a whole new therapy for each client.” Irving Yalom