“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
– Aristotle –
Individual Counseling
First, thank you for considering my practice. I view counseling as a process of identifying the stories we tell about ourselves. It is these stories that lead to how we feel and I view my role as being like an editor of your story. My goal is to help you look into how accurate your stories about yourself really are, what can be changed, and to support you in making those changes.
As a therapist, what clients tell me are stories about themselves told by a particular author. But there’s another version of the story and my job is to help reveal that version so it can be edited. What are you leaving out? What are you emphasizing or minimizing? As your counselor my objective is to reflect the parts of your story that are biased or outdated so you can revise them. For instance, when a person is depressed they are not the best person to talk with themselves about their story. But when they can be more clear about what their story really is and not just their narrow version of it, that’s when change begins to happen. Counseling is like having someone hold up a mirror so you can see yourself in new ways.
A Common Underlying Experience
No matter what a client comes in to talk about, there’s always an underlying sense of loneliness. A lack of connection. I believe that this kind of isolation permeates people’s lives. We are not connecting in the ways we were meant to connect. And now, even within our own families-with people who live under the same roof, people are sitting next to each other but they’re not really with each other. Loneliness is the first pandemic. Before anything else, counseling provides a connection that supersedes this sense of loneliness.
Solving Real Problems
Counseling is an empowering, transformative process based on a therapeutic alliance. A connection where we are truly with someone and seen. A space where our experiences have place to exist without judgment. Validated and unburdened, nothing assuages loneliness like the therapeutic relationship. In addition to the ubiquity of loneliness, many people seek counseling because something has changed in their life. An emotional experience or a significant life event. Counseling focuses on helping people to see themselves through a mirror that reflects their truer and better parts so that they can begin to see a clearer and more balanced picture of their stories and themselves.