present sensing psychotherapy

Struggling with anxiety and panic can feel overwhelming, affecting everything from your thoughts and emotions to physical sensations. I see our work together as an opportunity to develop awareness and acceptance of your experiences, rather than managing worries or fixing yourself.  In Gestalt therapy, we explore the root causes behind your experiences, helping you understand how you have learned to respond to situations. Together, we can explore your sensations and thoughts, addressing dissociation and the isolating feeling that can come with these struggles. You don’t have to face it alone—we can work towards being with your whole range of experience, finding understanding and clarity in the present moment.

Codependency almost always incudes a “good guy” and a “bad guy,” and we can get stuck in these roles.  This tricky dynamic can lead to difficulties with boundaries, often leaving you feeling lost in relationships or conflict. If you're struggling with prioritizing others' needs over your own, or finding it hard to let go when it's time to move on, this is something we could explore. We could work on identifying your boundaries, uncovering how you learned to make sense of yourself with others, and navigating your relationships with more clarity and understanding. We can explore what supports are needed for you to be in relationships that are balanced, where you can be more fully yourself without losing who you are.

Stress, overwhelm, and burnout can stem from taking on too much, pushing yourself past your limits, and constantly trying to please others or meet impossible standards.  If you recognize that you are particularly sensitive, and/or can easily feel overstimulated, we could explore what’s going on in your life that is creating this response in you.  Through attention to sensations and perceptions, Gestalt therapy helps bring awareness to your pacing, allowing you to recognize when you're overextending yourself. Together, we’ll explore perfectionistic tendencies and patterns of people-pleasing, helping you understand how things got out of balance, so you can find a way to approach life, work, and your relationships that lets you be more fully yourself.  It’s not about doing more, but about being more present and intentional in what truly matters to you.

Life transitions can bring about feelings of stuckness, uncertainty, and difficulty making or committing to big decisions. Gestalt therapy helps you explore your options and understand what’s holding you back, guiding you toward finding deeper meaning and purpose in your life. We might explore working through what’s coming up for you as you consider a big change, such as a fear of not-knowing, and bring some supports in that could allow you to approach risk with more awareness, so you can move forward with clarity and confidence. Whether you’re navigating a major life shift or wanting to approach change with new awareness, you don’t have to do it alone.

Loneliness and isolation can deeply impact your sense of self and your relationships with others. In relational embodied Gestalt therapy, we focus on the importance of connection and belonging, helping you explore the ways in which you feel disconnected from others and yourself. Through building awareness and embodied experiences, we can work together to illuminate and understand barriers (their presence and function in your life), allowing you to build a deeper sense of belonging within yourself, in the therapeutic dynamic, and in your relationships. Your feelings of loneliness or disconnection are showing up for a reason — therapy can support you to better understand what makes connection meaningful to you.

In relational embodied Gestalt therapy, we explore the core of your self-esteem, identity, and sense of self. Often, emotions like fear, shame, and unworthiness are at the heart of questioning yourself. Through compassionate understanding, we’ll work together to meet your resistance and avoidance, gently unraveling patterns like catastrophizing, procrastination, and isolating. Being alert to catastrophe, or avoiding certain situations have kept you safe in the past, and maybe even helped you survive in your family. It’s important to understand these creative adaptations before just erasing them from your life.  We might also explore how you may attach your self-worth to achievements or roles, helping you reconnect with your sense of self beyond external expectations. This process of discovery can allow for deeper self-compassion, and might support you to embrace who you are without having to “fix” yourself.  You make sense!

Trauma, whether relational, developmental, or intergenerational, can deeply shape who we are and how we relate to ourselves and others. In relational embodied Gestalt therapy, we explore how these wounds may manifest in your present-day life and relationships. By focusing on both your emotional and physical experience, we can uncover the patterns passed down through generations and address the deep-rooted impacts of past trauma. Working together to explore your moment-to-moment experience in therapy, we’ll move through a process of awareness and understanding, integrating these experiences, and creating space for meaningful connections and a more expanded sense of yourself.

The perimenopause and menopausal transition can bring about a mix of physical, emotional, and relational changes that can feel overwhelming or disorienting. In Gestalt therapy, we co-create a space to explore the unique challenges of this stage of your life, including shifts in identity, self-esteem, and relationships. By tuning your whole range of experience - sensations, perceptions, feelings - we work together to understand and navigate the complex emotions and experiences that arise, moving toward deeper self-awareness and expansion into who you are becoming. This process can help you navigate the transition with greater clarity, compassion, and connection to your evolving self.