Individual Therapy
Individual therapy is a tool that can help you move towards living the life that you want to live.
Anxiety, depression, or maybe feelings of general unhappiness may be obstacles in your
personal and professional life. You may be feeling stuck and not sure how to move your life
forward in a more positive direction.
In our work together, I’ll draw from a number of approaches to meet your unique needs. Therapy needs to be individualized for it to be effective and work for you.
Since how we navigate our lives and relationships are strongly affected by our lifetime of experiences, I utilize systems theories. For example: by exploring the the first system you belonged to (your family of origin) you can gain an important framework for understanding how you’re helping or holding yourself back in your current systems: work, marriage, friendships, community, and culture. From there, you can learn to do things differently and change patterns that have led to familiar pitfalls.
People I work with have found it helpful in our work to explore the patterns and unique qualities that originate from our family of origin.
For anxiety and depression, I draw from a Cognitive Behavioral framework.
Research shows that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is very effective, especially with anxiety and depression. CBT provides structure and a framework that will allow us to collaboratively problem solve, identify causes of symptoms, and work together to create a tool kit that will help you manage and reduce the negative feelings or relationships that you are looking to change.
Some parts of the tool kit that my clients have found helpful include:
- Identifying "thinking traps"
- Exploring how you process thoughts and feelings to challenge and rework negative patterns
- Identifying emotional triggers and exposure work
- Mindfulness and deep breathing exercises
.