About Our Practice

Get Ready to Be Treated Like the Unique Individual That You Are

The process of seeing a therapist is very different from visiting a typical doctor’s office.

You may be used to waiting for your doctor anxiously thumbing through a magazine, only to see the specialist for a few short moments. Before you even have a chance to ask the question that was eating at you, you’re handed a prescription and ushered out the door.

That’s not the experience you have when you become one of our clients.

At our practice, clients are made to feel like they belong.

Our entire focus is on getting to know each individual and how their unique experiences and struggles influence their health and happiness.

Therapy is A Lot Like Mountain Climbing

Going through therapy is an exciting time of growth and discovery. Like climbing a mountain, it can be painful just taking those first steps.

Once you get started, however, you find you rhythm. Your muscles get used to the effort, and you’re motivated to reach the summit.

At times you doubt if you can make it, but your therapist helps guide and motivate you to push beyond what you thought was possible.

When you reach the summit, you are filled with a sense of awe at your accomplishments. And you’re also ready to find the next peak to climb.

Forget What You’ve Seen About Therapy in the Movies

You may be thinking that therapy is like the movies, where an old white-haired man sits stoically behind a couch while his patient is forced to spill embarrassing secrets for an hour.

This is not what we do.

Therapy is a collaborative, interactive process where therapist and client work together to reach shared goals. In the session, we combine the individual’s experience with our professional expertise to find creative solutions.

A Good Therapist is A Person, Too

They have extra training, but they still have to pay rent, be responsible for their family, and take care of their health. As the saying goes, you have to practice what you preach.

If you come to sit on the couch, you’ll get to look me in the eye and see there is a person who cares about your wellbeing.

I won’t make you feel ashamed or guilty for struggling. Instead I’ll proudly acknowledge your decision to get help.

You can learn to talk back to your fears and laugh at your mistakes. You’ll have an opportunity to move forward without getting hung up on being perfect.

Asking for Help Is the Opposite of Crazy

My mission in starting this practice was to help clients feel that they were not crazy for asking for help.

There is often a stigma about admitting you suffer from anxiety. Our society values a stiff upper lip and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, but those quips don’t provide a guidebook on how not to suffer. Worse, they make it seem like white-knuckling it is the only option.

Helping people treat their anxiety is a calling that began for me early in life. I remember struggling with a fear of heights at camp and having to watch others whiz down the ropes while I sat with sweat beading on my brow while my knees shook waiting for courage to come.

Eventually, the kind words of an instructor got me to move. The exhilaration of getting to the bottom of the cliff on my own power was addictive.

I found that experience again and again throughout growing up in midwestern Cincinnati.

Whether it was gaining the courage to try out for the school play or taking on a job as a promotional speaker for a media company or an interpreter in the local hospital, each decision followed the same course: initial fear and dread that gradually faded through taking measured risks and relying on the support of others.

That’s Exactly What Therapy Can Do for You

It can help you push beyond what you believe are your limits. It can help you gain confidence through facing your fears.

I was always good with computers, and during my graduate studies I became interested in how technology could help enhance psychotherapy.

As a psychologist, I learned about how the nervous system and our conscious mind interact to help produce fear. I’ve seen firsthand how technology can act as a window into our unconscious mind showing us how to retrain our automatic processes and regain control of our lives.