My Approach to Helping

When I ask clients what they want in life, I am always answered with, "I just want to be happy!" One of my favorite things to do is help people achieve this. I truly care about my clients, work together with them to achieve their goals, and am proud to say that my clients benefit from our work together. It is truly an honor to be entrusted with client's stories, lives, and struggles, and I have the utmost respect for people who ask for help.

Life is hard enough and sometimes we need to have someone to journey with who isn't a friend or family member, someone who we don't have to worry about burdening, offending, or being judged by. Sometimes it helps to have space just to talk about ourselves and our own stuff.

I strive to be genuine, trustworthy, non-shaming, non-judgmental, and effective in therapy so that clients leave in a much better place than when they began. I'm a humble person who works together with clients to achieve their goals, and am proud to say I have received many complements about their experiences with me. I'm also honored to say that even though I'm the one in the therapy room with professional experience in counseling and marriage/family, my clients are always enriching my life as we journey together to make their lives better.

More Info About My Practice

I understand the importance of wanting to feel better! My approach is to get started right away. My goal in the first session is to show clients I understand their problem, help them start making sense of it, and leave them with something to help them start feeling better right from the first meeting.

I'm happy to say clients like my approach and find it useful from the start. I get a lot of positive feedback at the end of the first session. I love to be effective and am happy to share my knowledge with others!

My Role as a Therapist

I'm a consultant to individuals on life issues, providing them with understanding, clarity, new solutions, and hope! A good therapist bridges the gap between suffering and happiness. A good therapist inspires hope while helping people develop the skills/tools they need to meet their goals. Often our best attempts to solve our problems become the problem. A good therapist helps people identify these failed attempts and work together to create solutions that actually work.

I take my role as a therapist very seriously, and am consistent in my personal life with living the values I use in therapy. What you see is truly what you get. My clients have told me that they enjoy my personality, understand my treatment methods, and appreciate my ability to be straightforward in a way that helps clients feel accepted, make sense of their problems, and solve them.

Had a Negative Therapy Experience?

Sadly, I've heard it a lot. Trust is essential in ALL relationships, not just the therapy relationship. I assume that people must trust by verification. I work slowly with clients so they can size me up along the way and decide for themselves if I'm trustworthy. And at the end of every first session I ask people, "Do I sound like someone you would like to work with?" I'm proud to say that people like my approach and feel safe as a result.

Important Factors for Choosing a Therapist

INTEGRITY! Defined: The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.

If your therapist doesn't have integrity the rest of the qualities/moral principles I'm about to list off just won't be there consistently:
Honest
Trustworthy
Respectful
Genuine
Empathic
Kind
Non-shaming
Non-judgmental

Why Going to Therapy Does Not Mean You are Weak or Flawed

Everyone has problems, and everyone is flawed! It's part of being human but doesn't make us weak. True strength is the ability to face our problems/fears, and to ask for help because we aren't perfect and don't know everything. True strength is the ability to admit our humanness, accept it, and work within it to achieve our goals. Sometimes we can't do this alone, and a good therapy relationship can make all the difference.