Focusing on You

Insight-Oriented

Take a moment, close your eyes, and pay attention to what’s going on inside right now. What are you feeling? What thoughts might you be noticing? Do you start to get the impression you’re living with a bunch of inner roommates who seem to have little to no consideration for your well-being or for your boundaries? Do these roommates tell you what they want, whenever they want, and do they seem to excel at getting you to act in ways you’re not okay with? 

Trade the word roommate for thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and many people can relate to this experience. For a lot of us, we live in an inner world we would never replicate in the world outside of us. We would be out before the lease was up if we lived with roommates who berated us, barged into our rooms, or kept us up all hours of the night.

Self-Driven

If you feel like you’re trapped in a toxic roommate situation, I want you to know you have a choice about how long it continues this way. It’s possible to live in harmony with your thoughts, feelings, sensations, or impulses, and even come to appreciate their presence in your life. Despite how they come across at first, I believe your inner roommates are there for a reason and they have your best interests at heart. I can help you come to understand why and to uncover the real value and wisdom they can bring to your life.

Another benefit of having inner roommates is that they’re simply that: yours. No one will ever know them the way you do, and no one is as uniquely suited to identifying the “how” for creating lasting change in your life as you are. Consider me a co-pilot along for the ride as you get to know yourself and your needs even better than when you first came to therapy.

Holistic and Trauma-Informed

Maybe it was too scary to even think about closing your eyes and taking a peek inside. For some of us, our inner world doesn’t feel like a safe place to be. In response, we become skilled at pushing away painful thoughts or feelings by developing strong layers of protection between ourselves and the pain. I like to tell people it’s not about what’s wrong with you, it’s about what’s happened to you. Our bodies are wonderfully made to help us get by in life, which means we adapt to our experiences, particularly distressing/traumatic experiences we weren’t equipped to handle at the time or process through. 

We also tend to store the pain from those experiences inside our bodies, leaving us with an inner world we’d rather avoid. While many of us desperately try to move away from the pain, deep healing actually comes from moving towards the pain. While this may sound daunting at first, I’ll be right there with you to help the healing process unfold as safely as possible.

My Experience and Special Interests

I received my Masters in Clinical Counseling Psychology from Illinois State University in 2012 and became a Licensed Professional Counselor in 2015. I began my time as a therapist working in the community mental health setting providing both inpatient and outpatient therapy. After about four years, I moved my work to the private practice setting, and have been there ever since. 

I have been trained in EMDR therapy and draw from several other treatment modalities to best serve my clients, including mindfulness based practices, solution-focused therapy, and Internal Family Systems therapy. While there are many presenting issues I can be helpful with, I have a special interest in working with adults who struggle with anxiety, depression, ADHD, self-esteem, connecting to others, reminders of past trauma or disturbing life events, and spiritual traumas (i.e., time spent within rigid, demeaning, and abusive religious groups or theological frameworks).