John Bodycombe, Psy.D

Do you struggle with feeling lost, unsatisfied, or overwhelmed with your life? Do these struggles affect your relationships, your mood, or your work? I help adults and emerging adults work through these concerns. Life?s difficulties can cause feelings of anxiety and depression and affect our relationships. They can trigger feelings of anger, make us feel clingy, or cause us to seek time alone. I help clients work through these feelings and experiences, to improve your life and help you achieve your goals. In therapy, I strive to understand your unique world and to work with you to deepen your understanding of your struggles. I do this by working with you to create a supportive, trusting, and safe therapeutic relationship, through which difficult thoughts and feelings related to your struggles can be explored and understood more fully. This individualized and collaborative approach allows me to treat people as the individuals that they are, rather than a person with a diagnosis. No two treatments look the same, but my clinical decisions are guided by experience and contemporary research.

I also specialize in work with men. Men tend to internalize their challenges, leaving them feeling lost and isolated. They may worry that seeking help means they are weak or have failed. I help men better connect to themselves, empowering them to improve their relationships and lives. The search for a therapist may feel intimidating. I offer a free 50-minute consultation to answer your questions and help us decide whether we should work together. Please feel free to email me or call to schedule an appointment. I am typically able to schedule the first appointment within a week.

Making the decision to begin therapy can feel overwhelming and frightening. Many people have had limited experience of therapy, and so draw on the experiences of others or even popular media such as movies and television shows to understand what therapy looks like. The truth is that it is completely normal to feel this way. Who wouldn't be hesitant to share their most personal problems with a complete stranger? Therapy is about you. It is about examining your life and using that experience to empower you to make changes and deal with the difficulties that life creates. None of us can deal with everything alone, and it takes incredible strength to recognize when we need help, and to seek it out. Therapy is a gift we can give ourselves, and while change often means facing and working through discomfort, in the end, our lives are made richer by the growth we can gain from it.

Taking care of ourselves is one of the most difficult, yet powerful things we can learn. This is particularly true when we speak about our mental and emotional lives. Many people who are engaged in therapy do not speak about it openly because of the belief that others will view them as weak, or unable to handle their own lives. These stereotypes are not the same in most other fields. We do not fear criticism for taking our car to a mechanic. We do not experience shame for going to doctor when we are sick. We do not think there is something flawed about us if we need to exercise to take care of our physical health. These beliefs and fears often lead us to keep our problems inside and to try to handle them on our own which often makes us feel isolated and self-critical. We live in a world with billions of other people, all of whom have their own struggles. While it may feel like a weakness, it takes tremendous strength to brave these beliefs and stereotypes, and to let someone in to help.