Services – Client Side Counseling

Individuals

There are many reasons for coming to counseling. Maybe you’re going through a rough patch emotionally or socially. Maybe you’re mostly happy with your life, but want to explore new possibilities. Maybe you have a particular habit or mindset that you are looking to overcome. Regardless of what brings you, you deserve a counselor who knows and values the fact that you are a unique individual with your own character, abilities, and, yes, challenges.

In my practice, I strive to get to know you, and collaborate with you to determine your goals and work to reach them. My primary model is humanistic/client-centered, but I draw from mindfulness, cognitive behavioral, and strengths-based approaches as well.

Relationships

At their best, human relationships can provide warmth, security, companionship, and strength. However, it’s not always easy to maintain a relationship at this level. Some of the issues that may erode your partnership include:

Work stresses
Personal crises
Physical illness
Money concerns
Differences over child rearing
Growing apart over time

When relationships falter, the results can range from irritation and loss of connection to loss of intimacy, devastation, and betrayal.

Whether your partnership is in serious distress or working well overall with only a minor glitch or two, I will work with you on building the trust, communication, and mutual respect that are the foundation of a loving and fulfilling companionship.

Asperger’s/ASD

Being an adult with Asperger’s Syndrome poses specific challenges. Although awareness is growing, the vast majority of society is not only neurotypical (non-Asperger’s), but also poorly educated on the subject. As a result, even well-intentioned individuals may react to you with unease or impatience, leaving you feeling sad, angry, and/or ostracized. You may even have trouble finding or keeping jobs, with further consequences to your self-esteem. An empathetic, well-informed therapist can help you manage these emotions and build necessary social skills within the context of how your mind works.

My counseling approach combines client-centered therapy with cognitive techniques. As a client-centered counselor, I will work to get to know you, the individual, in the context of your Asperger’s. Once we’ve built a trusting relationship, we will collaborate on identifying your particular goals, whether internal (self-compassion, coping with emotion) or external (building relationships and navigating a world that thinks differently than you do). As we build strategies to reach these goals, I will work to help you build a clear and compassionate understanding of yourself, in terms of both strengths and challenges. Without trying to change the way you think, I will help you to identify and challenge thought patterns that may not be serving you well. The end goal is for you to become an effective and appreciative ally of the unique human being you are.