Finding the Right Fit: My Approach To Therapy
Starting therapy is rarely a small decision. Often it comes after months, sometimes years of carrying something quietly: a pattern that keeps repeating, a relationship that feels stuck, a grief that hasn't settled, or simply a sense that life should feel more like your own. Whatever brought you here, I want this first post to give you a real sense of how I work, so you can decide whether it's a good fit before we ever meet.
Therapy as a collaboration, not a fix
I don't see therapy as something done to you. It's a collaboration, two people paying close, honest attention to your life together. My role isn't to hand you answers or tell you who you should be. It's to help you hear yourself more clearly, notice the patterns that run underneath your days, and make sense of what's really going on beneath the surface.
Why I work the way I do
My training is in Transactional Analysis, and I work relationally. In practice, those two things go hand in hand. TA gives us a clear, practical language for understanding how we relate to ourselves and to others. It looks at the different "ego states" we move between (the part of us that's spontaneous or wounded, the part that's rule-bound or critical, the part that's grounded in the here-and-now), and at the life "script" each of us wrote early on, often without knowing it, about who we are and what we're allowed to have. A lot of what brings people to therapy is that script quietly running the show, old decisions about love, worth, or safety that made sense once but no longer fit.
Working relationally means the relationship between us isn't just the container for the work; it is a lot of the work. Many of the patterns that trouble people outside the therapy room show up, sooner or later, inside it too: the same ways of pleasing, withdrawing, testing, or protecting. When that happens, we can look at it together, in real time, rather than just talking about it in the abstract. That's often where the most honest change happens, not from insight alone, but from having a different kind of relational experience and letting it teach you something new.
What sessions actually look like
There's no script. Some sessions move quickly into a current struggle, a conflict, a decision, a wave of anxiety. Others slow right down, following a dream, a memory, or a feeling that doesn't yet have words. I'll ask questions, reflect back what I notice, and sometimes gently name a pattern before you've fully seen it yourself. You set the pace. My job is to stay close enough to be useful, without rushing you anywhere you're not ready to go.
Who I tend to work well with
People come to me for many reasons: anxiety, low mood, life transitions, relationship difficulties, a creative or professional block, or simply the sense that something under the surface needs attention. What tends to unite the people I work best with is a willingness to look inward, even when it's uncomfortable, and a genuine curiosity about their own inner life. You don't need to have language for what's wrong. You just need to be willing to start looking.
A first step, not a leap
If any of this lands with you, the best next step is usually a short initial conversation, no pressure, just a chance to ask questions and get a feel for whether we're a good match. Therapy works best when it feels like the right relationship, not just the right technique, and that's something we can only really discover by talking.
If you'd like to arrange an initial conversation, use the Contact button at the top of my website to send a message, and I’ll get back to you shortly.
