Why Seek Therapy
We all want to live our lives with relative ease, feeling strong and confident in ourselves, knowing we can manage whatever stress shows up in our lives on any given day. We want our relationships to be safe and satisfying. We want our work to have meaning and our lives in general to have purpose and be fulfilling. We want to be honest and authentic, and we want to live our lives in a healthy, balanced way.
But sometimes, life being life, we find ourselves struggling in one, or a few, of these areas. We become unhappy, perhaps anxious or depressed. Often, as hard as we might try, we can’t seem to “fix it,” to change it or do it differently. We get stuck in the old, familiar ways of responding and reacting.
That is the work of psychotherapy, to help us get clear on what is bothering us, on what it is that is not working in our lives. Therapy helps us explore what it is that is stopping us from moving forward. It helps us get free of habitual, lifelong patterns that don’t work for us anymore and find more effective, satisfying ways to live our lives.
My Role as Therapist
It takes a lot of courage to enter into the therapeutic relationship. Creating a warm, safe environment for you to tell your stories and feel your feelings is, for me, the most important aspect of the therapeutic relationship. Once you feel safe, you can begin to let go of the walls of protection you have built around you and begin to share those things that you have held close to your heart, kept buried deep inside of you for safe keeping.
As a therapist, you will find me to be gentle, kind, compassionate, yet strong. I will listen to you deeply, compassionately and respectfully. I will share with you my observations, insights and intuitions. I will be honest with you, encouraging you as well as challenging you when necessary, but always with respect, kindness and a loving heart. Sometimes, we’ll laugh—a sense of humor is very important in the healing process. I will help you gain understanding and perspective on your issues and give you new tools to cope.
I believe that my role as therapist is that of a guide, that you already have everything you need inside of yourself for your own healing. Sometimes however, you need help with going inside to listen and with trusting what you hear. When you do learn to listen and believe in yourself, you begin to feel safe and comfortable in the world. Your inner critic transforms into a voice of compassion, love, and self-acceptance. You learn to nurture yourself. You start to validate yourself, trusting your own inner thoughts and feelings. You stop turning to the outside world to tell you what to do, how to think, how to behave. You know that you are OK because you know that the answers to your questions reside inside of you.