“there are feelings. you haven’t felt yet. give them time. they are almost here.”
—nayyirah waheed
Our approach to all of our work holds a relational focus. We are humans in the room with you. We want to get to know you, to understand you, and learn how best to support you.
We are curious and often work as detectives, trying to figure out what’s happening, what the pattern is, in collaboration with you. We sometimes suggest homework or teach skills, but we also rely on you to track your experience and bring your “data” back to your next session. We don’t have a formula of how we work with a given issue, but we collaborate with you, contributing our expertise and asking for yours, to develop understanding, resolve problems, or support desired change. We want to support you creating a vibrant, full, connected, and meaningful life.
In addition to our areas of specialization, we see clients for a wide range of issues, from anxiety to depression to identity and more, working from a relational lens.
We each have our own style of individual therapy, but one model we incorporate often is Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT). In EFIT, as in Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy, we go into emotion. That’s where powerful change can happen. Not just by understanding intellectually, but by shifting the felt experience in the present.
We may tune into parts of self that have been hurt in the past, developing in you a capacity to be with those parts, nurture them, and hold compassion for your experience. We join with you as a witness, and sometimes as a guide, entering into the impactful scene that you describe so that we can feel it just a little also, so that we can get it.
As the EFIT model teaches, we attend to both the meta level, where we zoom out and understand the patterns in your life, and the granular level, where we zoom into your past felt experience. This includes a deep dive into your early (and present) attachment relationships. What did you learn about yourself in the world, about relying on others, about security? Do you know the experience of being nurtured in relationship?
We may use narrative therapy, to learn the stories you hold about yourself, your life, and others, and assess whether they are due for an update.
We may use Internal Family Systems — another way of identifying and working with parts, or aspects, of self.
Whatever approach we are taking, we will incorporate a relational perspective.
Issues Addressed in Individual Therapy Include:
- Challenges in relationships (partner, friends, family, kids, work, etc.)
- Addressing your part of a conflictual or disengaged relationship
- Processing events, changes, feelings
- Wanting to better understand your patterns
- Identity
- Shame
- Negative beliefs about self, harsh internal dialogue
- Harmful narratives you internalized earlier in life and continue to carry
- A disconnect between your personal values and your religious teaching (doctrine)
- Depression
- Anxiety
While the intersections of sex therapy, couple and relationship therapy, and trauma care, are a focus of our practice, all therapists are trained as generalists, too. We work with clients every day around concerns such as depression, anxiety, grief, painful patterns from family of origin or in relationship with others, coping with stressors in life, and identity issues. If someone has referred you to us because they thought we would be a good fit, or if you found us online and clicked with what you read, please feel free to contact us and don’t be dissuaded by the specialist focus.
What to Expect
Some people come to tx to solve a problem, some come to reduce symptoms, some come to process complex experiences. There is no one size fits all, and we don’t have a one-size fits all treatment. In your first sessions, we will develop a collaborative picture of what’s happening for you, and what your needs are for therapy around it. We welcome your input about what kind of style suits you best and we will accommodate that within our individual ranges of practice.
We believe that all feelings and “symptoms” make sense. Sometimes the first part of the work is understanding how they came to be, and how they do make sense. We know that it’s not just about a painful experience, but so often it’s about being alone with it. We want to help you find the words to express your experience, sometimes to express what has been wordless. And we want to help create an experiential shift.