Individual Therapy
Individual therapy is a collaborative process between a therapist and a client, aimed at facilitating change and improving your quality of life. During therapy sessions, you'll have a safe and confidential space to explore your feelings, beliefs, and behaviors. You can work through challenging memories, identify areas of your life that you'd like to change, and gain a better understanding of yourself and others. The benefits of individual therapy are numerous, including improved emotional and mental health, heightened self-awareness, better coping strategies for stress and adversity, and improved relationships with others. It can also provide relief from symptoms of mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety, and help you manage and overcome traumatic experiences, personal challenges, or life transitions.
Common Topics That Come Up in Therapy:
Identity
Identifying, or not identifying, oneself is an organic process that cannot be rushed. Attempting to identify one’s culture/gender/sexuality/spirituality can be frustrating, overwhelming, anxiety-provoking, you name it. There may be periods of avoidance, fear-based anger, self-deprecation, and guilt. You are not alone. Whether an issue with identity has presented itself following a life-changing event or as a natural part of your story, let’s walk the journey together and chip away at the challenges you face with claiming, or reclaiming, your identity.
Interpersonal Relationship Effectiveness
Interpersonal effectiveness is the healthy utilization of skills when interacting, or communicating, with others. Conflict may arise when someone does not use or display effective interpersonal skills. Strained relationships often highlight conflicting values, power struggles, ineffective styles of communication, and attachment issues. We like to empower individuals through strengthening their communication skills, distress tolerance, sense of self-worth, and use of healthier boundaries.
Inner Child Work
Inner child healing may involve exploring unprocessed childhood emotions and feelings that currently impact one’s life and understanding, managing, and/or reducing triggers. One desire for inner child work may be to identify wounded areas and/or unmet needs of the child, learn to advocate, protect, or show compassion for the child, create a safe enough space to invite the child to play, and integrate the child with the adult self.
Anxiety
Anxiety is a natural response to stress, characterized by feelings of fear, dread, worry, and uneasiness. It can manifest through physical symptoms such as increased heart rate, sweating, trembling, and fatigue. While anxiety serves as a survival mechanism, alerting us to danger and preparing us to act, it becomes a concern when it is excessive or persists beyond appropriate situations.
Depression
Depression goes beyond usual sadness or temporary blues. It is a deep and persistent feeling of despondency and despair that affects how one feels, thinks, and handles daily activities. Symptoms of depression can include persistent sadness, loss of interest in previously enjoyable activities, changes in appetite or weight, insomnia or excessive sleeping, energy loss, feelings of worthlessness, and difficulty thinking or making decisions.
Intrapersonal Effectiveness
Intrapersonal effectiveness goes beyond self-discovery to not only understand the self but to also apply that knowledge for the betterment of self. Intrapersonal effectiveness skills promote balance within self, increase emotional intelligence, and helps to clarify internal dialogue. With the help of a self-inventory, intrapersonal effectiveness calls for the recognition of strengths, weaknesses, desires, etc. to improve in the area of self-management and become the optimum version of you.
Trauma
Exploring trauma in therapy is a delicate process that involves unpacking and understanding the emotional and psychological impact of distressing events. It's a pathway to healing that requires navigating through painful memories and emotions. This process aims to empower individuals, helping them regain control over their lives and fostering resilience and growth.
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are traumatic events occurring before the age of 18, including instances of abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction. Studies reveal a significant correlation between the number of ACEs a person has endured and a wide range of negative outcomes in adulthood, such as poor physical and mental health, substance misuse, and risky behaviors. Understanding the impact of ACEs is crucial for early intervention.
Emotional Dysregulation
Emotional dysregulation is characterized by difficulty in managing the intensity and duration of emotional responses. This imbalance can manifest as sudden, severe, and seemingly unprovoked reactions to relatively minor stressors. It's not uncommon in individuals who have experienced high levels of stress or trauma, including those with a significant number of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).
Life Transitions
Life transitions, whether planned or forced, may trigger symptoms of emotional instability, anxiety, or depression. We like to validate the natural responses to change and work through the extended symptoms. Common examples of life transitions include: marriage, divorce, death, loss, career changes, coming out, new parenthood, illness, retirement, gender reassignment, adjusting to college life, empty nest syndrome, etc.
Grief & Loss
Exploring grief and loss is a deeply personal process that involves acknowledging and understanding the multifaceted emotions associated with the loss. It's about navigating through the stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—in a supportive and safe environment. This exploration aims to help individuals find a path to coping with their loss by expressing their feelings, memories, and fears.
Self-Discovery
Self-discovery is an introspective journey with the goal of finding oneself. There are times when we get so off track with ourselves that we are strangers in our own skin. Self-discovery helps to reconnect with ourselves, accept who/where we are, and grow. Self-discovery may go hand in hand with a difficult life transition, a traumatic event, the desire to claim your identity, or to settle an existential crisis. Whatever brought you to the point of seeking self-discovery, we welcome you.