Find a Therapist in Petaluma, California.

Are You Experiencing Any of These? People often come to therapy to move forward in their lives, even if they have no significant symptoms. For many others, therapy is sought because they are experiencing: • Depression • Stress or anxiety • Unresolved conflicts with a spouse, children, bosses, and co-workers. • Grief and loss that has gone on too long. • Difficulty balancing all the responsibilities of their life. • Difficulty adjusting to changes in health, job situation or in the family. •Problems related to trauma in the distant or recent past. • Issues related to drinking or use of other substances. • Parenting difficulties with children.

For me, Psychotherapy is a collaborative process that provides a safe, supportive environment to explore one’s thoughts, feelings, experiences and relationships. The past, I believe, often informs and impacts the present. Through conversation and reflection, one may gain greater insight and understanding, work through challenges and barriers in the service of developing new ways of coping and developing.

My clients often find me easy to talk to and say they feel comfortable with me, trusting quickly. This can make the psychotherapeutic process easier and more effective for my clients, especially if they are nervous or don’t know what to expect. Therapy with me can range from just talking casually with each other, leading to insights, increased self awareness, and processing through emotional issues, or it could be more intensive deeper therapy like EMDR.

Psychotherapy is a great tool to help you understand yourself better. Everybody can benefit from the self-knowledge that psychotherapy brings. With insight, understanding and humor you can live the life you want without the stumbling blocks the unexamined life brings. Psychotherapy can help you reveal the unconscious process that motivates and defines you. Self understanding is the key to making the good decisions that lead to a happy and fulfilled life.

Psychotherapy gives you a place that exists for one purpose: to understand you. Away from the roles you play and the people you look after, you can finally turn toward your own experience and say what's true. That alone can be a relief; over time, it becomes much more. My role is to listen with care and to help you notice what you've overlooked: the recurring themes, the feelings that don't add up, the desires and fears you may not have put into words before. Much of what shapes us runs quietly underneath the surface, and bringing it into the open is what allows things to shift. The trust we build together is part of how the work heals: being met with serious attention and care.

Psychotherapy is not anything to be scared of, or intimidated about. Seeking out a therapist or being in therapy isn't an admission of weakness or some kind of character flaw. Therapy is a collaborative process and a partnership with someone who is trained in and experienced with facilitating personal growth. And in this process, you are in the driver's seat. Our minds and emotions and relationships involve complicated machinery just like our bodies do and in the same way a medical doctor helps you stay physically healthy, Psychotherapy is designed to help you be and stay mentally and socially strong, and continually in a position to take on life's many challenges as your best self.

I am a Counseling Psychologist, therapist who uses Psychotherapy as a healing process, directed in assisting persons who deal with difficulties of daily life functioning. The initial consultation can focus on identifying the immediate problem and a solution. The following sessions are directed to longer term goals and a resolution. The treatment model in your therapeutic process is best tailored to suit your personal, emotional needs.

Psychotherapy is the use of psychological methods to help a person change behavior and overcome problems in a positive manner. Its aim is to help people understand the thoughts behind feeling anxious or depressed and addressing these thinking patterns. Psychotherapy will help you change behaviors and habits that are limiting you, to experiencing your fullest potential.