Mental Health Counseling Services
Psychology is the study of the soul. I look at therapy as a healing of that soul, but I have always felt that therapy was not enough. A weekly meeting to vent is not really therapy. We are encouraging insight and understanding into the SELF. An amazing therapist Dick Shwartz summarizes the SELF or soul as the emotional space in which we are curious, confident, courageous, creative, calm, clear, connected and compassionate. In this space we use, as Dr. Dan Siegel describes the whole brain or what Brene Brown calls wholehearted living. We know this SELF in others because when we experience it we have an unspoken feeling of being connected. We don’t have to guess about how the interaction went, we feel that the other person is feeling our emotions and allowing us to feel theirs. Contact me today with your counseling service inquires.
My approach is much more hands-on and I believe there are questions that come up in everyday living and we don’t know what to do. In those moments, we can regress with an emotional injury even after things have been going very well. Having a coach you can reach out to allows you to autocorrect as you go and maximize each interaction with your loved one. It is exciting to hear someone say, “I can’t believe that worked!”
Relationships are not intuitive. So this is NEVER about blaming. It is ALWAYS about understanding. My method allows for that understanding. Initially, everyone blames themselves and that is a human response, but as more emotional work is done it becomes so clear that your parenting and relationships are a culmination of generational behaviors and so there is no one to blame because they -the previous generation -didn’t know. It is ALWAYS about learning and understanding. So my method is more than helping you gain insight, like a sports coach I tweak and advise and help you develop acquired secure attachments with others. My counseling services can help you achieve your wellness goals.
I offer a full range of personal and professional counseling services using a wide range of methods, which can be conducted by phone or video conferencing. My services can be customized to accommodate your preferences, so feel free to contact me on the appointment form below, or send me an email message with all relevant details: dro@theteendoc.com.
I have never seen someone run to therapy and say, whew! I’m here. I am excited to expose all my deepest wounds for everyone to judge and criticize. But, I have seen people walk out repeatedly and say, I feel so much better. See for yourself how my counseling services can help you to feel better too.
I frequently tell people with whom I work, you don’t know what you don’t know. Because you do not know the information, you have no way of predicting how that can change how you view the world or yourself. This is what good therapy helps you do. With a wide range of counseling services, I can help you to change your world view.
Issues that we can uncover are:
Anxiety
Depression
Sleep issues
Weight concerns
Academic or work issues
Family, marriage and parenting issues
Medical concerns
Loneliness, feeling stuck and not completing tasks
Therapy can be scary and a very human experience is not wanting to bring up painful things. It is quite normal to want to let sleeping dogs lie. The issue is that these “sleeping dogs” or the past tend to influence what happens in the present whether we want to acknowledge it or not. This significantly impacts how we show up in the world and who we think we are. My counseling services will help you take a deep dive into the inner you.
We formulate our thoughts about ourselves based on the people around us. Our weight, academic talent, physical appearance, athletic ability, social cache, friendability and more all originate from something we heard a parent, aunt, teacher, another student, clinician, sibling or caretaker say. This is why I am a big fan of Miguel Ruiz’ Four Agreements which states that the first agreement is to be impeccable with our words. Words have power. Because words have power we can tell someone they run like a… or we eat like a… and forever alter what that person believes they are capable of. It is a concept called learned helplessness which would be fine if we understood that was what was happening. Instead what happens is that we make the comment part of who we are and we grow around the comment limiting that part of us hoping to have some approval from that person by hiding this part of us that made us unlovable and expanding the parts that earn us approval and therefore make us feel lovable.
What therapy starts to do is create curiosity instead of judgment. It is only from the perspective of curiosity that we can start to ask why we do something and seek to understand it instead of judge it as good or bad. Knowing that what we discover is information to help us emotionally grow is a better perspective to uncover things we may be fearful of uncovering. This is what helps us develop who we are from the inside of us instead of what we have been practicing, which is forming ourselves based on bumping up against the demands of others. Over time, clients start to actually like and even love themselves. I have always thought of this as falling in love with yourself not in a narcissistic or arrogant way, but the true authentic way that makes each aspect of us lovable. Sure, maybe not loveable to everyone, but now it doesn’t matter nearly as much if at all. Let my counseling services help you to grow emotionally.
