Individuals

Individual Psychotherapy

Are you feeling depressed or anxious; or having difficulty with relationships, work, or parenting? Or are you concerned about the impact of your drinking or using, or the amount of time you spend online? Therapy can help you resolve these things. It can also help you find ways through life challenges such as learning to parent, mid-life crises, adjusting to retirement, or adjusting to a new gender or culture.

IndividualsEveryone feels awkward or ill-equipped at times for the challenges life presents to us. Individual psychotherapy can help in many ways: learning new skills, finding a different perspective, resolving communication problems, or breaking through inhibitions. If you have not experienced psychotherapy before, it may at first feel awkward or be unclear as to it can help. Therapy is a place where you can get support, understanding, and a compassionate perspective to assist in meeting challenges.

At times individual psychotherapy may involve unlearning old patterns, acknowledging painful experiences, and taking responsibility for things that are not easy to admit. These tasks, while difficult, can be easier in the company of someone who is nonjudgmental and compassionate, and can help you find new ways to look at things. The reward if you take risks and work to change patterns can be that you more easily achieve your goals and desires, and be more at peace with yourself. In a single word, therapy can help you be happier.

Individual therapy usually happens once per week, at the same day and time, for 50 minutes. Sometimes longer sessions or less frequent meetings are appropriate. Often the session is spent talking, but we may also use EMDR, sand tray, art, writing, gestalt exercises, or role-playing. Whatever the techniques employed, my approach is always collaborative, compassionate, and non-pressured. It is important that you feel you have a voice in the direction therapy takes, and that it is yielding the results that you want.

If you are interested in the possibility of working together, please call or email me for a free initial interview to see how it might feel to work together. If, during that conversation or a subsequent appointment, it becomes clear that we would not work well together, or if your needs fall outside of my scope of practice, I will be happy to provide you with appropriate referrals to other qualified practitioners.

Links related to Individual Therapy:

A web page of the National Mental Health Association, containing frequently asked questions and links to pages on specific topics. Includes information on depression, eating disorders, anxiety, etc.

From the website of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, this page addresses questions about MFTs: qualifications, how to find them, etc.

Five guidelines for finding the best mental health professional to meet your needs; from the Huffington Post.

View additional links on this topic here.