My Approach to Helping
My aim for everyone I work with is a greater sense of freedom, emotional relief, enhanced connection, awareness & understanding, direction, meaning, choice, clarity, inner-strength, confidence, worth, resilience, fulfillment, contentment and peace. Anxiety, depression, trauma and all the symptoms of existence just stand in the way at the first.
For over a decade I've been honored to help guide people out of their mental-emotional prisons, past pain, and present stuckness. Choosing not to be alone in it any longer is the key. Many clients come to therapy because they're tired of trying to control and strong arm life - wrestling with how life is, has been, and should be. Others have difficulty trusting or feeling safe in relationships, fearing abandonment, failure, love, uncertainty etc. Many also never feel good enough, always staying busy, striving for more accomplishment, achievement, or fulfillment yet constantly sensing a greater "lacking". Since Covid, a lot of people are experiencing a lack of direction, purpose, and depth of connection to others.
People who work with me tend to go beyond just feeling better after improving whatever initially brings them to therapy. Overcoming that stuff is really just the beginning of the process of becoming your potential. If you desire freedom and a deepened connection to your Self & others (even God), I can guide you to unlocking the chains you didn't even know were holding you back. You can be in the drivers seat again, not your thoughts, fears, or symptoms.
More Info About My Practice
I work with teens, adults, parents, and couples throughout Montana and New Mexico.
What I Say to People Concerned about the Therapy Process
Oftentimes there can be a tension between a part of self that's ready for change and the part of self that wants everything to stay the same. There's a certain comfort in the familiar. It's predictable, and the known can give a sense of control. Our ability to keep enduring the same old same can seem less risky even though it's no longer beneficial to stay in it.
The other big thing that prevents going through with therapy is that it can be a very vulnerable and intimate experience due to the relationship that's formed. Connecting to another, being seen, understood, and genuinely cared about is where many of our prior wounds and survival instincts reside. The ways in which your "Self" knows how to keep you safe often times is motivated to go the opposite direction of what the therapeutic experience can be. But, that's where alot of the problems come from.
My View on the Nature of 'Disorders'
I take a strong "non-pathologizing" approach to therapy. If you use health insurance, they require a diagnosis to bill for the session, beyond that I find them to be an unnecessary burden on people that can get in the way of growth. Sometimes there are biological factors that play a role in wellbeing but more often than not, it's our lived experiences, unmet needs, and survival strategies that have impacted our present thoughts, beliefs, emotions, behaviors, choices, and our relationship to ourselves and others. These things influence the degree of "okayness" or flourishing in the right here and now.
The Duration and Frequency of Therapy
Some people just want to put out the current fires in their life, learn a few skills, and service their car or patch their tire. This can take anywhere from a few sessions to several months. Other people end up gaining so much value and self-understanding from it they want to go further and end up rebuilding their engine or customizing how it drives, so to speak. This process becomes a journey of several years but no different than a new exercise and nutrition routine that yields dramatic positive changes over time. Ultimately therapy begins and ends when you choose for it to. We go as far as you want.
Clinicians who offer sliding scale payment structures may offer lower or reduced fees based on an individual's ability to pay. Please contact this clinician for more details regarding their fees or sliding scale policy.