Therapeutic Relationship

Effective therapy is ultimately based on trust.

It’s about finding a therapist who’s qualified to treat you. But just as importantly, you need one who gets your struggle and relates to you in a manner that helps you understand and believe things can be better.

My goal is to be the therapist that my client needs me to be. I want to help, but you must be able to trust me and relate to me if I’m to be an effective therapist for you.

Things I believe about therapy – and life…

I hope that by sharing some of the beliefs most important to my therapy process, I can help you imagine what therapy with me is like.

In a session, I’m unwaveringly reliable and present – in the moment with you. But therapy doesn’t end when the session is over. Beyond the actual visit, I continue looking for ways to help you achieve the life you desire.

My greatest strength is the propensity to see the best in others while accepting them as they are. The greatest blessing is when I can help you do the same for yourself.

No one’s at their best when in a crisis.

It’s quite common for therapy to bring out a person’s less than “best” behavior.

While violence or deliberate meanness is never acceptable, I have an uncanny ability to look past language, gestures, behaviors, habits, and individual differences that often annoy or offend others. I find it much more useful to focus on making things better and allow anything that’s not useful fall away in the process.

Therapy is work, so it’s not usually easy and fun. However, I believe very strongly that therapy works better if it’s interesting, stimulating, and memorable.

I use worksheets, games, handouts, and other tool-building exercises to help you make discoveries and learn skills that enable you to manage your emotions and behaviors. Also, homework assignments completed between visits are important to reinforce the insight and skills we develop in session.

We’re all “weird” to someone, and I see no valid reason to assume one person’s “weird” is any better or worse than another’s. I believe “weirdness” increases a person’s value, and I genuinely look forward to discovering those “weird” qualities that make you special.

I also want to help you see your value and appreciate how your “weird” can help you make an extraordinary contribution to your friends, family, community, and the world – and look at that, we just turned “weird” into “extraordinary”! 😊

Emotionally, I’m the strongest person I know. When therapy takes a scary or painful turn, rest assured that whatever experiences you need to work through, I can take it. I’ll be with you every step, every breath of the way, helping you feel safe as you confront your fear, trauma, or loss.

My gift is…

…seeing you as your best self, while accepting you as you are, as a work-in-progress, until you get there.

Let me help you do the same for yourself.

Let’s start your journey to becoming who you want to be doing what you want to do!

Make the call today!