Depression and/or Anxiety
Depression typically comes with feelings of inadequacy and guilt, often accompanied by lack of energy and disturbance of appetite and sleep. Anxiety is characterized by states of worry, nervousness, or unease. This may result in compulsive behavior or panic attacks. There is a sensation of heaviness that contributes to difficulties with motivation. Other times people may be overthinking, over-doing, and overcompensating.
Therapy can be useful in better understanding the origins of depression and/or anxiety and in working to reduce the intensity of painful feelings so that day to day functioning is improved. Daily functioning is an important part of therapy work but depression and anxiety may also impact your ability to connect with others. In the therapeutic work we will explore and identify how depression and/or anxiety may be negatively impacting your life and relationships. Additionally we want to build the awareness of the resources in your life that can help you cope, confront fears or worries that may or may not be real, and sometimes take the time to simply slow down.
Relationship Challenges
Humans are creatures who inherently need to connect with others. While we rely on relationships for support, sustenance, and growth, people may struggle to develop relationships that are healthy and fulfilling. The experiences that many people may have are that they repeatedly find themselves in difficult relationships. You may struggle with being understood, communicating and articulating your needs, or with feelings of isolation and loneliness. The struggle may feel unique to you, or you may feel that you are having these feelings alone, which can become internalized as self-blame or blame of others.
First we work to identify the patterns and the challenges in your relationships - to become aware and identify your needs is the first step. The root of many relationship challenges stem from relationships with our primary caretakers - a reflection of how we learned from our earliest interactions how to feel or not feel soothed and express our needs. The work we do is to build trust and confront some of these difficulties within the therapeutic relationship between you and me.
Cultural/Identity Issues
Cultural identity is the identity or feeling of belonging to a group. It is part of a person's self-conception and self-perception. People’s experiences around race, sexual orientation, gender, religion, age, mental and physical ability, and other cultural identities vary from person to person. While aspects of cultural identity are often sources of strength and support, they can also contribute to stress or pain in an individual’s life.
Therapy can be a useful place to explore aspects of ones cultural identity, conflicts between one’s own desires and the expectations of their culture, and coping strategies when faced with bias and discrimination. Therapy can help individuals accept and resolve the ways that multiple parts of our identities can feel at odds with one another. I have many years of experience with and a commitment to working with diverse populations, including but not limited to, people of color, Asian Americans, and, Queer or LGBT+identified people.
Childhood Trauma
There is an unfortunate reality that some of us were born into family systems where there have been layers of struggle, betrayal, abuse, or neglect. These experiences leave people feeling confused, unsafe, anxious, and isolated. You may feel anger or helplessness, or both at the same time. Addressing the harm(s) requires that the therapist and the client create a safe and holding relationship to contain the painful emotions, memories, and traumas of the past. Childhood traumas can have an impact on our present life, at home or at work. Sometimes in our current relationships we regress to our inner-child fears, which may get in the way of our adult relationships and manifest in the form of attachment wounds.
This will unfold at your own pace, you will lead and I will be present with you and your journey. Before we can go in to unpack, release, repair the past, we will work together to reach a level of safety and security. The ways that we protected ourselves as children have become adult resources that we may not need anymore.
Managing Stress/Anger
For some individuals that come to therapy, the primary emotional experience might be frustration, irritability or anger at self or others. Clients who come to therapy with these emotions often feel tired of not being understood, or overwhelmed with stress and pressure in their personal or professional lives. You may feel like there’s a lack of effective help around you. What is less often visible or seen by others is that underneath your anger is a lot of loneliness or sadness - feelings that may feel more unsafe or inaccessible than the surface anger. There can be for some people an internal experience of all these things but it may feel unsafe to express your anger outwardly, which then may turn into an attack on the self.
In the therapeautic work we examine where the root of your feelings of frustration and anger come from. We’ll explore what needs aren’t being met, and what parts of yourself are feeling neglected. The expression of frustration and anger may be masking deeper fears or vulnerabilities.
New to Therapy
You are taking a very big step as you seek out therapy. Some people may feel soothed by reaching out and talking to others. But many people feel a sense of hopelessness in their isolation, and a worry that nothing will change. Taking the step to reach out and ask for help is itself courageous. Some of us have been taught to stay quiet, stay silent, and not ask for what we need. Therapy may go against cultural norms or practices, or be connected to a broader sense of shame or weakness.
The way that I approach individuals who are seeking out therapy for the first time is to make room to talk (together) about how therapy will work for you, and what our relationship will look like. My role for first-time clients is to help people begin to form words, see images, make associations, connections, and speak to our past and present selves, to give voice to the pain and the joy of our lives. We will work together to grow a practice of identifying the emotions and feelings that lay beneath our experiences, and a deeper skill in observing ourselves and our internal worlds.