Now accepting new clients! Call or email for a free 10-15 minute consult.
Individual Counseling
Counseling can be an effective treatment for a wide range of concerns, most commonly anxiety, depression, trauma, and relationship issues. It provides tools and support for managing life's challenges and enhancing overall well-being. Drawing from a few psychotherapy approaches, I aim to assist clients with the following:
- Emotional Relief: Providing a safe space to express and work through difficult emotions, reducing feelings of isolation and distress.
- Improved Self-Awareness: Helping individuals gain insight into their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, leading to greater self-understanding and self-acceptance.
- Enhanced Coping Skills: I teach effective strategies for managing stress, anxiety, depression, and other challenges.
- Behavioral Change: Assisting clients in identifying and altering unhelpful patterns of behavior and developing healthier habits.
- Better Relationships: I work with clients to improve communication skills, resolving interpersonal conflicts, leading to healthier relationships.
- Personal Growth: Encouraging exploration of personal goals, values, and aspirations, fostering overall personal development.
EMDR therapy
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a type of psychotherapy that helps people heal from past trauma and distressing experiences. It is particularly effective for individuals dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other emotional difficulties related to traumatic events.
EMDR therapy involves a structured process where the therapist helps the client process traumatic memories by using bilateral stimulation—typically through eye movements or other forms of rhythmic sensory input. This helps the brain reprocess distressing memories, making them less emotionally charged and easier to manage.
Through this therapy, clients can reframe negative beliefs related to trauma, reduce emotional distress, and develop healthier coping mechanisms. EMDR therapy is a powerful tool for helping clients overcome the lingering effects of trauma, allowing them to heal and regain a sense of control and well-being.
How EMDR Therapy Works:
- Assessment: The therapist works with the client to identify troubling memories and related negative beliefs. This step includes understanding the past trauma, its impact, and current symptoms.
- Desensitization: During the session, the client focuses on the trauma while simultaneously engaging in bilateral stimulation (typically moving the eyes back and forth). This process helps the brain reprocess the traumatic memory, making it less distressing.
- Reprocessing: The goal is for the client to reframe the negative beliefs they have about themselves due to the trauma and replace them with more adaptive and positive ones.
- Installation: Positive beliefs are reinforced through the therapy process, and clients are encouraged to adopt these new beliefs to help heal from the trauma.
- Body Scan: The client scans their body to check for any remaining tension or distress related to the trauma, and if any is found, it's processed further.
How It Can Help Clients:
- Trauma Recovery: EMDR is highly effective in treating PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), as it helps the brain reprocess trauma and reduces symptoms of anxiety, flashbacks, and nightmares related to the traumatic event.
- Emotional Regulation: Clients learn to better regulate their emotions, reducing feelings of fear, shame, or guilt associated with traumatic memories.
- Reduction in Physical Symptoms: Trauma often manifests physically (e.g., headaches, tension, or chronic pain). EMDR can help alleviate these physical symptoms by targeting the root emotional causes.
- Improved Coping Mechanisms: Clients are often able to build healthier coping mechanisms and shift from maladaptive patterns of thinking and behavior to more constructive ones.
- Faster Results: Unlike traditional talk therapy, which can take years, EMDR often shows faster results in processing trauma and healing emotional wounds.
Perinatal Counseling
Preparing for and welcoming a child is one of life's greatest joys. It can also be extremely difficult and painful.
Perinatal mental health counseling focuses on addressing and supporting mental health challenges that occur during pregnancy and the first year after childbirth. This period, often referred to as the perinatal period, can be especially vulnerable for emotional and psychological issues due to the significant physical, hormonal, and lifestyle changes that accompany pregnancy and early parenthood.
Here’s how perinatal mental health counseling may help you:
- Early Intervention: Counseling can help identify and address mental health issues early, which is crucial because untreated mental health conditions can impact both the parent and the child’s well-being.
- Support for Common Issues: It provides support for common conditions such as prenatal and postpartum mood disorders, anxiety, and depression (PMADs). These conditions can affect a person's ability to care for themselves and their baby effectively. Also addressed are grief and trauma related to infertility challenges, unwanted pregnancy or pregnancy loss.
- Coping Strategies: I can help individuals develop coping strategies and tools to manage stress, anxiety, and other challenges. This can be especially important for adjusting to new roles and responsibilities as a parent.
- Building Resilience: By seeking counseling support through the perinatal period, individuals can build resilience and improve their overall emotional well-being, which can positively impact their parenting and relationships.
- Education and Information: I can offer education about what to expect during the perinatal period and provide information on how to recognize signs of mental health issues, both in oneself and in others.
- Support System: Counseling provides a safe space for individuals to express their feelings and concerns, helping them feel less isolated and more supported during a potentially challenging time.
- Enhanced Parenting: Addressing mental health issues can lead to improved parenting and child development outcomes, as parents who are mentally well are better able to engage with and support their children, thus promoting secure attachment.
Overall, perinatal mental health counseling is a proactive approach to ensuring the mental well-being of parents during a critical time, which can have lasting positive effects on both their lives and their children’s development.
Walk and Talk ~ Outdoor Services
Walk and talk, or outdoor counseling, is a therapeutic approach where sessions take place while walking outdoors rather than sitting in a traditional office setting. The idea is that the combination of physical activity and being in nature can create a more relaxed and open environment, which might help clients feel more comfortable and less constrained by the traditional counseling setting.
This method can encourage a more conversational and less formal atmosphere, potentially making it easier for clients to express themselves. It’s also thought that the natural surroundings can have a calming effect and enhance the therapeutic process.
Outdoor counseling can be particularly appealing for those who feel more at ease in nature or who may find traditional therapy settings challenging. However, it might not be suitable for everyone or for all types of therapeutic issues, so it’s usually something discussed and agreed upon based on presenting issues and treatment goals. New parents: You are welcome to bring your babe, and I/we can pack or stroll them while we visit.