LGBTQIA+

We all need a relational home, a trusted other who can help us grasp our hopes, our fears, our experiences, and our true selves through the ups and downs in life. Some communities have a particularly strong need for an environment where those things will be accepted, treated with respect, and supported through the growth and healing processes.

Even with all the positive changes happening around LGBTQIA+ rights, individuals, couples, parents and prospective parents in the LGBTQIA+ community still face many unique challenges.

Through our work together, many people from the LGBTQIA+ community who work with me have found a safe place to share their stories and explore their lives. Some common issues that arise are related to depression, anxiety, life transitions, difficulties with work or school, sex addiction, substance abuse, HIV/AIDS and other health-related issues.

If these are the issues you’re facing, and you would like to explore how therapy can help you understand and navigate them in a safe environment, please click here to send me a message.

TRAUMA

Dealing with neglect, abuse, or a lack of comfort and protection in our home early in life can be incredibly challenging. We often develop coping mechanisms in response to these harsh environments without understanding how and why they influence our emotions, self-image, communication skills, and relationships with others.

Traumatic events that can come at any stage in life, such as accidents, violence, or death of a loved one, can also lead to challenging situations that may leave us stuck in problematic and systemic behavioral patterns.

While our coping mechanisms may have been our only options, and may have helped us with day-to-day functioning, they can eventually become problematic, affecting our health and sense of self, and making it difficult to trust and love others and allow them to love us.

Facing our strong reactions and coping mechanisms with someone we trust through an analytic, relational, and spiritual approach can be a powerful, life-changing experience. It can bring us freedom and relief from our conditioned responses, leading to a more embodied and integrated sense of self.

If you have any questions, or you’re interested in learning more about how I can work with you to face those challenges, please click here to send me a message.

MEN’S ISSUES & MEN’S GROUP

Many of the men I work with feel like they’re hiding their true selves from even the most important people in their lives. Addressing issues of relationship depth, authenticity, and honesty that men face is an important part of the work that we do in both individual and group therapy.

In my men’s group, men of all ages, backgrounds, and expressions of gender and sexuality are welcomed into an exploration of the ways we struggle with our culture’s narrow definition of masculinity and how it can lead to issues with anger, suppressed emotions, and pressure to look or act a certain way. By addressing these issues together in a safe and honest environment, we can support each other, increase our ability to have meaningful relationships and intimacy with other men, ultimately improving the quality of all of our relationships.

If you’d like to learn more about my Men’s Group, or you want to talk about how I can help you explore these issues as an individual, please click here to send me a message.

SPIRITUAL EMERGENCE / EMERGENCY

When our spiritual energy awakens, we crave understanding. Experiencing a new season of life triggered by stress, trauma, medicine work, or spontaneous spiritual energy may lead to new and extreme feelings of emotional intensity. Spiritual Emergence can be a pivotal moment, one marked by equal parts exhilaration and fear, overwhelm and chaos, death and rebirth.

This new expansion can cause us to react dramatically, disturbing the routines of our daily lives. The mundane may feel overwhelming, and our place in the world may feel disorienting, leading us to experience a crisis of mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual identity. We may not recognize ourselves, and it’s possible for those around us to misinterpret our behavior as worthy of intervention or hospitalization.

I work with individuals experiencing Spiritual Emergence by supporting their process and ultimately guiding them to a place where they can feel grounded in both the physical and spiritual worlds. In our work together, we’ll find ways to support, contain and understand your peak experience and find structure within it, so that you can re-emerge into your life with a deeper understanding of who you are and where you’ve been.

If you need to know more about what Spiritual Emergence is, or how therapy can help you explore its role in your identity, please click here to send me a message.