My Approach / How I Work
Psychotherapy is more than just talking. While discussing your challenges can offer temporary relief, true internal and external change comes from a deeper process. My approach aims to increase healthy thinking and effective behaviors, guiding you towards self-understanding, self-awareness, and self-growth.
Core Principles of My Practice:
Self-Understanding
Through telling your story and making sense of your past experiences.
Self-Awareness
By becoming more mindful of your own thoughts, feelings, and needs.
Self-Growth
By identifying and changing what is not working in your life (ineffective thought and behavior patterns, relationships), learning healthy coping strategies, and making conscious choices that lead to growth and contentment.
Exploring My Modalities: Tools for Your Growth
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Philosophy: Our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are deeply connected. Change thinking, change feeling and acting.
How it helps: Identifies unhelpful thought patterns, reframes them to balanced perspectives. Present-focused, goal-oriented, provides practical tools for anxiety, depression, and self-doubt. You become your own therapist.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Philosophy: Balance of self-acceptance and meaningful change. Two seemingly opposite things can be true at once.
Core Skill Areas:
- Mindfulness
- Distress Tolerance
- Emotion Regulation
- Interpersonal Effectiveness
How it helps: Manages overwhelming emotions, improves relationships, fosters balanced living.
Expressive Arts Therapy
Philosophy: Grounded in the belief that creative expression can be a powerful pathway to healing, self-discovery, and personal growth. Not about perfection, but exploration.
How it helps: Combines psychology and creative arts. When words aren't enough, art becomes a language for safe expression of deep pain or trauma through drawing, painting, sculpting, collage.
Mindfulness
Philosophy: Moment-by-moment awareness of thoughts, feelings, and sensations, non-judgmentally.
How it helps: Tunes thoughts to the present moment. Reduces rehashing the past or imagining the future. Helps make conscious choices and connect with your body.
Existential Therapy
Philosophy: Focuses on free will, self-determination, and the search for meaning. Emphasizes your capacity to make rational choices.
How it helps: Centered on you rather than symptoms, helping you develop to your maximum potential by exploring life's deeper questions.
Person-Centered Therapy
Philosophy: Clients lead discussions, fostering self-discovery of their own solutions.
How it helps: Provides an empathetic, non-directive environment for clients to explore their inner resources and find their unique path to contentment.
Strength-Based & Trauma-Informed Approach
My practice is rooted in a Strength-Based perspective, recognizing and building upon your inherent capabilities and resources. Complementing this is a Trauma-Informed Approach, which acknowledges the widespread impact of trauma and integrates this understanding into all aspects of therapy, ensuring safety, trustworthiness, and empowerment.