One of my specializations is working with clients who experience anxiety. Anxiety can be experienced in feelings of worry, nervousness or dread. For many people who deal with anxiety, going to new places and meeting new people feels terrifying. This is often a barrier to seeking counseling or therapy. Clients tell me that they thought about going to counseling for their anxiety long before they reached out. Teletherapy can make taking that first step much easier! Distance Counseling allows you to pick the comfortable, private place for your virtual therapy session. One uncomfortable new thing versus many; this can decrease the dread of starting counseling.
After a loss so many things are in flux; many things are changed, different and feel scary. Grief counseling may be something recommended to you as a resource or support. However, going to a new place and meeting a new person can feel especially daunting when your whole world has just turned over. Teletherapy is a comfortable alternative to traditional therapy; meeting with a counselor from a place you find reassuring is a less stressful way to start the therapeutic journey. For many clients I see who have lost a spouse, child or are navigating divorce, schedules are overwhelming, demands are high and adding one more place to be on the calendar is too much.
Distance counseling has been very effective with clients who were seeing me before the pandemic and also with clients I've met virtually. Key components of the therapeutic relationship still remain virtually - empathy, listening, presence, dialogue and emotional safety can all be conveyed through Telemental Health sessions. Many clients love the convenience of Telehealth. It allows them to save time commuting and put that time into their families, friends or other self-care activities. Many clients are able to actually be more vulnerable because they are in the comfort of their home or other safe space they choose for their therapy session.
There is much grief during this pandemic. Many of us have experienced nothing like this in our lifetimes. Our world has changed and is continuing to change each day in the face of Covid-19. Change brings with it an experience of and feelings of loss. How does your culture express and experience loss? What does your culture teach you about grief? Does it have a language for or expression of lament? We live in a broken world and there is suffering. Injustice exists and is happening to so many right now in this pandemic. What do we do with all we are seeing and feeling?
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought with it grief of all sorts. There's the grief that most of us think of first: loss of life. That grief has been sudden and scary and difficult for so many people. Many are not able to attend funerals or hug their relatives or say goodbye the way they would like to. This can painfully start an already difficult grieving process. How do we grieve when we don't get to say goodbye? How do we say goodbye from the confines of our homes and without a formal service guiding us through. Grief counseling can help…
Anxiety is at an all time high right now for many people. The Covid-19 pandemic has brought much change and uncertainty to our "normal" daily routine. People who have dealt with and experienced anxiety in the past are seeing a surge in their symptoms. Many people who have not had pervasive anxiety symptoms before are experiencing frequent anxious thoughts, tight chests, restlessness and difficulty relaxing. Telehealth can sound scary or strange. Distance Counseling is a great way to start therapy because you can choose the environment that feels safe, confidential and comfortable for you!
This is a difficult time in our city, our country and our world. Experiencing the Covid-19 pandemic is difficult and uncertain. We are without a mental framework. We don’t know how to think about it or adjust to the Coronavirus. We’re all working on finding the new normal, or the new abnormal. Much is up in the air: how long will this last, will we get sick or have a family member sickened, when will the kids go back to school, will we lose our job or have enough income to get us through next month. There are so many unknowns…
Many clients come to counseling realizing they are quite guarded or shutdown. Some realize they are living more isolated than they want in their relationships. For others, relationships may have ended because they were too guarded. Therapy can help dig out the root of invulnerability and teach steps towards vulnerability. It's hard to let your guard down; for some it's really hard to open up. In counseling we look at those fears and find ways to connect in the face of them. In stepping toward vulnerability, connection happens. Isolation can then decrease and so can loneliness...
Date night is so important to maintaining a healthy relationship and keeping the fun and excitement growing. Couples who date regularly are more connected, satisfied and intimate! When I'm working with clients in marriage counseling, we always talk about date nights. Are date nights happening? How often are they dating? Are they talking, holding hands, and laughing during date night or just starting at screens? Date night is a time to connect, to learn new things about each other and share deeply with each other...
One of my passions is incorporating faith into the counseling process. For clients who desire, I offer Christian counseling. One thing discussed often in therapy is how to find, experience and "feel" the Lord when one is feeling depressed or anxious. Depression is tough; just getting out of bed and accomplishing a few small things feels like climbing a mountain. Anxiety can leave someone paralyzed and exhausted from debilitating fearful thinking. During times like these, finding God can seem impossible. It can seem like you're praying and He's not listening or at least like He's not responding...
Often in therapy I'm working with a parent or parents who have adult children. Sometimes these children are in college or just out of high school and other families I work with have children who are in their late 20's or 30's. Parent come in for counseling at their wit's end, frustrated that their adult child isn't following their expectations. It's tough to know what boundaries to set with adult children and can be even tougher to actually implement boundaries with your adult kids. I've found in my work with families that some parents are being taken advantage of, some are enabling unhealthy behavior, and some desperately want their kids to succeed...
I work with many clients in counseling who are going through a break-up. Some clients are experiencing divorce, others are separating from long-term serious relationships. The end of a relationship is difficult, whether you initiated the break-up or not. Therapy can be a helpful resource in times of big transition like the loss of a relationship. After break-ups the tendency is to retreat, rebound or retaliate. These responses to the end of a relationship tend to hurt more than help and can often lead to more "stuck" feelings. Isolating can cause you to see things in negative ways and to feel more depressed. Rebounding with another superficial relationship or hook-up typically only puts you deeper into insecurity and loneliness...
I work with many clients in counseling who have difficulty identifying their feelings and knowing what to do with them. Therapy can teach you how to effectively understand and process your feelings. Feelings are important but don't need to rashly trigger our behavior. They are a great indicator but not a great dictator! Feelings help us make decisions but are only one piece of healthy decision making. For some clients feelings run every decision of every day. For other clients feelings are a foreign idea and they have no idea what they may be feeling at any given moment...
I often work with clients in therapy who are experiencing all kinds of anxiety. For some it's panic attacks, others have daily generalized feelings of anxiety, and others experience situational anxiety before a flight or a public speech. Clients who present for counseling are often paralyzed by their anxiety. Anxiety is keeping them from moving forward in their life in some way. Therapy helps them realize where they are stuck and what steps to take in order to make progress towards their goals. One primary principle we focus on in therapy to help them move out of paralysis is the thought-feeling connection...
Many clients I see for counseling struggle to know how to set healthy boundaries. Some clients come to therapy not knowing what boundaries are and why they are needed. Many of these clients arrive burnt out, exhausted and experiencing many health issues. Their bodies have worn down from lack of self-care. When we constantly say yes to things and people around us, we are saying no to ourselves. The longer we engage in that pattern, the more worn down we become. We end up in a vicious cycle that where we feel trapped. Counseling can help you interrupt that pattern...
I work with many young women (ages 13 and up) who seem to find themselves picked on, taken advantage of or bullied. This can greatly impact self-esteem or self-worth. Confidence can decrease and one can begin to be seen as passive by others. This can open them up to even more of the negative behaviors they first experienced. In therapy we not only discuss the pain from these experiences and how to move through that effectively but also assertiveness...
I work with many couples who are struggling in their relationships. Some have been married for over 20 years and others are just getting started in their relationship. A common theme I see is that married couples are no longer dating each other. They may be spending many evenings on the couch together or sitting in the same room both on their phones. They might be going out together with other friends or spending time with family. These things are not bad things but...
I work with many teenage girls in counseling that are feeling lonely and struggling to make friends. Many aren't happy with their current friend group. Some teenagers are working in therapy to overcome anxiety or low self-worth that keep them from healthy friendships. Others have very strong values and aren't willing to compromise those for the peer pressure they experience and thus they feel rather isolated. Many teen girls I see are in the throws of figuring out who they are...
