Individual Therapy

Do you prioritize others so heavily that you can lose track of your true needs?

Do you notice that you can be too ‘good’ at being put together that people around you can overlook you could use the support or help too?

Does fear, self-criticism, or shame often drive what you do next?

These are adaptive, protective strategies of disconnection or survival strategies, that has helped you cope and get through incredibly tough moments. At the same time, it has likely exhausted or overwhelmed you, kept you frozen, if not aiming for perfection, feeling unsettled or untethered, and perhaps, constantly feeling as if you will never be good enough. Those who have these experiences may feel anxious, depressed, burnt out or unmotivated. They may also feel disconnected and incredibly lonely even if their relationships remain intact.

I can help you discover your self-patterns and interactional patterns with others. Together, we can help you develop the version of yourself that embraces your needs or wants in relation to loved ones. We can support you decrease your sense of anxiety or depression, including your self-critical thoughts by providing a space to center you, to collaboratively explore your emotional parts, and cultivate self-compassion all in the context of your identities and culture.

When trauma—an experience of extreme stress and disconnection—has been present in your racialized and cultural body, we can work together to address unprocessed emotional memories and experiences to help you reconnect to your body, and feel a sense of security in important relationships.

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Learn to disrupt your patterns and rewrite your internalized narratives.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

  • Reach out to me by email at counseling@concinnitytherapy.com or request an appointment for a free half hour consultation. We will discuss your needs and see about fit. You will also receive a copy of my Professional Disclosure Statement.

  • I am a great fit for individuals, partners or family members if:

    • You are prepared and committed to slowing down, and exploring core sources of your emotional or relational stress

    • You want to develop a deeper relationship with your emotions and body, rather than intellectualizing or rationalizing them

    • You value being self-reflective, and learning to be accountable for your part, while considering how sociocultural context has impacted you and your relationships.

    I am less suited for those seeking immediate solutions, standardized worksheets or quick advice.

  • We will schedule an initial intake session and you will receive access to the client portal as well as my practice documents. The next few sessions will be related to assessment and eventually goal-setting.

  • Think of intake as a getting-to-know-you session. In the intake session, we will discuss your concerns in more detail, get to know each other further, and answer additional questions you may have about our working relationship.

    Following the initial intake session, we will schedule a longer 80-90 minute session for a more thorough assessment of your concerns and history.

    The initial assessment is me using an attachment and biopsychosocial lens to learn more about factors that influence you and your relationships such as your family history, individual mental health or attachment history. This initial assessment will happen through a course of 2-3 sessions.

    On the 4th session, we will usually clarify your therapy goals and co-create, review or adjust aspects of your treatment plan accordingly.

  • Therapy with me is client-centered, collaborative and relational.

    I center you and honor you have an inner knowing even if it may feel out of reach or vague. I am not the objective “expert” that defines your experience for you or tells you what is best for you.

    Instead, I bring my knowledge, training and experience of process. I name observed patterns, offer options as well as guidance so you can define or re-write your experiences on your own terms.

    By process, I mean the how of things or way of being—how you relate to aspects of yourself, your partner, or even, with me. Yes, we may use our working relationship together as a way to bring attention to your process.

    Therapy with me can be experiential, meaning I guide you with your consent to allow for your emotional parts and to permit your emotions or somatic sensations to inform you of your experiences given your identities and social context.

  • I tend to work with trauma in three phases, which can overlap and be circular, using an integrative approach.

    I first focus on creating internal and external safety with you. I help you learn more about your nervous system, and how to stay emotionally regulated, grounded and oriented.

    When you let me know you can access safety and stability internally, we would begin reprocessing memories or experiences related to the traumatizing events so your body can metabolize it and/or integrate it. The usual outcome is a sense of distance and coherence—understanding what happened inside of you, including the meanings you made of it, and accessing new adaptive meanings.

    In the third phase, we reinforce or reintegrate new meanings or positive learnings in your day-to-day. We would help you identify what aspect of self or your relationships that you want to keep or let go.

  • Integrative means I don’t rely on one theory or modality of therapy for all clients.

    I ground my work in relational/systemic and critical social theories, and blend evidence-based modalities to put these theories into practice, such as Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), Internal Family Systems (IFS) or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, as well as somatic techniques. I tailor these modalities to your unique situation, culture, and goals.

  • In beginning, usually, no. In individual therapy, you are the client.

    At the same time, we recognize that your networks of social relationships have influenced or continue to influence you as a person in relationship to others. In working together from a relational/systemic perspective, we keep this in mind.

    There may also be times where having your partner or family member physically present can be helpful to your therapeutic process. If so, we will talk about bringing these important individuals into session in an intentional way.

  • Using somatic techniques in therapy means we pay mindful attention to how your body holds stress, anxiety, perfectionism or cultural expectations. We track it together so you can feel it internally and able to link it to past or present experiences. We allow the body to inform you to release what has been stored by your autonomic nervous system reflected in your reactive responses and expand your window of tolerance.

  • No. While my legal background gives me an understanding of the court system, stress of litigation, distress of separation or divorce, professional compassion fatigue or burnout, I stay in my lane as a relational therapist. I do not provide legal representation, mediation or expert court testimony, including custody evaluations.