Adam Haggerty,LPC-IT

My Approach to Helping

More Info About My Practice

I will be co-leading a 6 week grief group called:

Beyond the Stages: Navigating Grief
Grief is something we all experience that has a profound impact on our lives. This is a group that we are offering for those navigating the ups and downs of a loss of a loved one. By creating a safe space to talk openly about our loss and remember our loved ones, we hope to support reflection and movement toward healing this summer. It will include some psychoeducation, group space for sharing, journaling activities, and a guided art project.
Thursdays starting July 25 ending August 29th
5:30pm-7:00pm
In person at CLARA Healing Institute
$200 for the series, payment plan and scholarships available upon inquiry.
Feel free to contact me for more details if interested!

How Psychotherapy Can Help

We are inherently social creatures, and sometimes we need the support of our community or a safe person to heal, understand, or make change in our lives. It's something that is a part of us that we naturally do in different ways with the people in our life. The people in our life offer space, understanding, and guidance that can help us see things in a different way, or make a needed change that is hard to navigate, or heal from an experience that was painful. Talking about these things is a natural remedy we all use, and the more often we do the better.

Sometimes our natural supports aren't able to provide this to us though. This could be for a number of reasons. We may be limited in the supports we have, or the way they support causing further issues. We may not feel comfortable speaking about certain topics with the folks closest to us for how they may see us, hold the information, or what they might say. Sometimes we need tangible guidance and support that the people around us don't have the skills or knowledge to provide. Sometimes we want an outside perspective or a neutral party.

For these reasons and many more therapy can be helpful. Therapy is about you having a dedicated support providing the space you need in a skilled and compassionate way. The goal of a good therapist is always to do what they can to support your happiness and resilience.

What I Love about Being a Psychotherapist

I have a deep love for people, and hold the idea that we are all doing the best we can to live a good life in light of all we have experienced. I love holding space for people to reflect and make their own meaning, to find the answers they seek, and develop skills to achieve change. When people's views of who they are expand, they find more compassion for themself, and confidence, I feel grateful for being able to be a part of it. If I can help someone find peace or even simply be able to breath I know that I have done something to improve the world. And I often find myself in awe of the moments that seem perfectly aligned, when I feel like what I have to give matches what someone might need so well that we are both different moving forward.

How My Own Struggles Made Me a Better Therapist

I decided to become a therapist when I was very young, around the age of 11. I have a wonderful family, but at that time my biological mother struggled with addiction, and my parents separated. At the time the rights of same sex parents were not well defined in WI, and so my biological mother took me out of state where we experienced many traumas, abuse, and homelessness. I made a decision then that this was not going to define my life, that I would find a way home, a way out of that darkness, and if I could perhaps I could help others to do the same. My mother found her own path of recovery, one which showed me the power of the decision to change. I made a vision for my future.

This vision has driven me to become a therapist. I completed a B.S. in Psychology at UW-Milwaukee while working in non-profits like Diverse & Resilient which serves the LGBTQA+ population of WI, and served in Americorps as a Public Ally with Great Lakes Hemophilia Foundation. Believing in the difference I could make I worked as a Family Case Manager at Children's Hospital while I completed a M.A. in Community Psychology at Alverno College. Post graduation as a LPC-IT I served as a Employee Assistance Program Triage Clinician at AllOneHealth, practicing on a wide range of topics, and specializing in Couples Therapy.

My View on the Nature of 'Disorders'

There are many ways we can understand ourselves, and the way we understand ourself shapes how we both act in the present and what is possible for our future. I think we all are charged with finding the best way of understanding ourself for ourselves to live a full life. I don't believe anyone can do this for us, but they can offer tools and perspectives for our consideration. Some of these we may discard if we don't feel like they are accurate or helpful, and some help us see ourselves in a different and fuller light.

Psychological diagnosis is a treatment tool. There purpose is to increase a therapist's ability to provide the most effective treatments to what you are experiencing in the hopes to improve your well being. It is a powerful tool, but even the best tools are not right for every situation, and there is always another way of understanding ourselves that might be better suited to us. It does not tell us who we are, but what the various things we are experiencing can be described as. This tool also comes with a lot of confusion and misuse in our society. I am well versed but do not rely or incorporate diagnosis generally unless you would desire it.

My perspective is that all of our emotions and "symptoms" have a purpose, something that they communicate to us about our state of being. Feeling and strong emotion is natural, as is having little emotion, the full range of our experience is to be expected throughout our lives and communities. We are all unique to ourselves in how we experience and cope with emotions, trauma, and change. Sometimes we need outside perspective and support to find a way to balance our experience.