INDIVIDUAL COUNSELING

Improve your mood, improve your life

Depression

To some people, depression can feel like being in a room with no windows or doors. You want to get out but the exit—if one exists—is not visible to you. Why keep up the fight to get out, to move forward, when your effort is futile.

An estimated 16 million U.S. adults experience at least one depressive episode each year. Symptoms of depression include a depressed mood, lack of pleasure in previously enjoyable activities, isolation, sleep disturbances, eating too much or too little, reduced energy level, changes in behavior and low self-esteem.

Anxiety

Anxiety has been described as a spring tightened to its limit, ready to snap. Its cause may be known—like an upcoming deadline, or a dreaded conversation—or unknown, like a shadow lurking from your past. Either way, your body’s natural response to fight, flight or freeze is turned up beyond your natural state of balance.

Anxiety is the most common form of mental distress, affecting as many as 40 million Americans each year. Forms of anxiety include:

Generalized anxiety disorder, in which anxious feelings persist even when an immediate activator can’t be identified.

Phobias, fears of a specific object or activity.

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Social anxiety, debilitating fears associated with interacting with others in social situations.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, persistent anxiety in response to an identifiable trauma.

How I work:

An important role that psychotherapy plays in the treatment of depression, anxiety and other forms of mental health distress is to provide a holding environment for your strong emotions. Your therapist will help you share the burden as you process the emotional traumas of the past, challenge your negative thoughts and identify your strengths.

As a narrative therapist, instead of seeing you as a collection of symptoms, I see you as a whole human being with intrinsic worth. Together we will explore your story, problems and all, with the goal of identifying unique exceptions in which you resisted Depression or Anxiety. Building on these inherent strengths, we will re-author your story.

At times, I will supplement this conversational therapeutic approach with other modalities, including guided imagery, mindfulness training, and behavioral change. Therapy may be short-term or longer term, depending on the persistence of the Problem and your goals.