Therapy for caring professionals

Therapy for those who care for others

You spend an enormous amount of your time tending to others. Perhaps you spend your days sitting with therapy clients, helping them contain their emotions, process trauma, or learn new ways of relating. You might lead a synagogue or church, providing spiritual and pastoral support to a community of people, or serve people of all backgrounds as a hospital chaplain moving from one crisis to another.

You might have your calling in some other capacity, a massage therapist, nurse, doctor or professional caregiver for those who are sick or disabled. Whatever form your caring profession takes it demands your all. I know, because I am both clergy and therapist and while I love both of my callings I know how much they ask of us.

Professional carers can easily become isolated, it can feel like we pour all our time and energy into others and we are left wondering who sees us, who tends to us, and where we can be vulnerable, honest, and seen. Caring professionals are all bound by various forms of confidentiality.

You spent your day with people at their most vulnerable, and your ethics forbid you from sharing those experiences with the people we would otherwise share our days with: a spouse or partner, a close friend, a family member. Instead, all too often, your work remains a gleaming pearl hidden in your depths with no outlet and no way to share what carrying it does to you.

Curious what therapy with depth can provide you? Therapists click here, religious leaders here, those who care for the body you'll find information here.

Therapy for therapists

Finding a therapist, as a therapist, can feel like climbing a mountain. First because it is incredibly vulnerable to let a colleague see that you don't have it all together, or everything figured out. You might be thinking "shouldn't I be beyond this by now?" or "wasn't grad school meant to fix me?" The answer of course, is no. So long as you remain human you will need support and there will be seasons in your life where therapy is the right kind of support. 

But you're a therapist, you have worksheets and coping tools, and all the latest research. If you needed just calming breath or reality testing you wouldn't be here. But at some point the tools reach the end of what they can offer. At some point you stand at the edge of the cliff and look out into the unknown that goes deeper than behavior, that strikes at the heart of your self-hood and you need more.

I practice depth oriented therapy. While we might talk about tools at first to make sure you can get through your day to day our real work is about climbing down that cliff into the uncharted jungles of your self and your unconscious to get to know the you behind the therapist who expertly cares for your clients, the family member who keeps your relationships connected, the friend who always shows up for others. 

That kind of journey gives you permission to set down your expertise, the things you should know, the ways you should be and get curious about the mysterious being underneath the persona you have worn in the world. Along the way we will discover the myths that have driven your shoulds, the parts of yourself you had to exile to be safe, and the power you have to choose a new path, to tell new stories, to reclaim all of yourself.

Specializations

My training and background have prepared me to work with a variety of issues. But I love most working with women in midlife as they process their trauma, heal generations of broken relationship patterns, and reclaim their voice and power to build a life of meaning and purpose.

• Questions of identity (values, career change, sexuality, gender)
• Trauma, both recent, past, and complex (PTSD & CPTSD)
• Unlearning unhealthy relationship patterns from our family of origin & our past and building new healthy patterns
• Times of transition (e.g. loss, pregnancy, gender transition, life stage transition, career change)
  
• Care-giver issues (adjusting to changes in relationship, care-giver stress, burnout, grief)

Because of my approach, I also see psychotherapy as a process of self care and growth, and especially enjoy working with individuals who would like to use therapy as a  means of self-exploration.

If you are ready to experience the benefits of psychotherapy, tell your own story, and begin to build healthier relationships and a meaning filled life, reach out! I look forward to meeting you.