Do you want to change, or do you want a fix?

The two are very different in the context of therapy. Change is hard work. It requires uncertainty. Falling and picking ourselves up. Trial and error. Bumps and bruises. Feeling exposed and maybe even lost in the jungle sometimes.

A fix seems easy. Someone hands you a technique, a script, a plan, and you hope it resolves the issue. The problem? It doesn’t go that smoothly. The desire for a fix often is an attempt to control or avoid our experience. Paradoxically, that desire often prolongs exactly what we are trying to remedy. Several different schools of psychotherapy see it this way. This is not rare. I often see it right away in the first session.

When we come to therapy, of course we want relief.

Yet how we approach therapy and what we expect from it greatly influences whether we will experience genuine change or just another way to try to feel less. Many come to therapy wanting to learn how to control their experience. They are often unaware that it is that very desire to control which keeps them stuck in a repeating pattern.

Control asks the world, or ourselves, to behave differently so we don't have to feel something. It is our attempt to create order out of chaos, either inside or outside of us. Sometimes control comes dressed as a psychologically informed explanation, a checklist of tools, or maybe even the sense that certain emotions shouldn't be there at all.

But our emotions are often trying to tell us something important. Indeed, they are us. Shutting them out means we never find out what and keeps us entrenched against ourselves.

Change asks something else of us: to be curious with discomfort long enough to learn we can tolerate it. To not rush to explanation, but to set down the story and to sense all of who we in the present moment. This requires us to relate to ourselves in new ways. And that's when things actually start to open up.

Trying to control our experience (or someone else's) can lead to:

• addiction

• relationship conflict

• low tolerance for emotional states

• irritability

• increased anxiety

• constant self-comparison

• perfectionism

• impostor syndrome

• low self-esteem

• codependency

• lack of meaning, purpose

• lack of pleasure

If some of this list sounds like you, good. Now you know what we're actually working with. The good news? You can learn how to work with this stuff, to change your relationship to yourself and others.

My Approach

My work is integrative and relational. Rather than focusing only on symptoms, I help you understand how your patterns developed, and how they still show up in your life today.

We focus on:

• Tracking what's happening in the body, not just the story about it

• Understanding attachment patterns from early relationships, and how they still operate automatically

• Developing accurate differentiation of emotional states and the capacity for communication while in conflict or distress

• Understanding boundaries as connected to somatic and emotional processes, not just as demands or requests

• Building a more compassionate relationship with yourself, one that actually changes how you experience yourself

• Global reduction of toxic shame, unbridled self-criticism, or identification with the super ego.

• Working with dreams as a source of insight

• Bringing contemplative practice into the work, when it fits

If this resonates with you, I’d be happy to connect.

I offer a free consultation where we can talk about what’s going on for you and whether working together feels like a good fit.

Schedule your free consultation

Contact me