An introduction.
Thanks for being here. I decided to start this website, and this blog, to have a space where I can easily share thoughts and ideas about mental health and life in general. I want to use this first blog post to share some of my core assumptions and values that guide my work as a counselor. These principles guide my interactions with clients and form the foundation for me to build healthy working relationships, through which positive change can occur.
There is nothing inherently wrong with you. So many people come into my office believing that they need to fix something that is wrong with them. While it is often helpful to identity and address unhelpful patterns of thinking and decision-making, to process difficult experiences, or to make some other adjustments, benefitting from doing so does not mean that someone is bad or wrong and in need of fixing. I believe that everyone who comes into my office is a whole, worthy human being just as they are.
Pain is a part of the human experience. This is a core concept in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and one of the things that drew me to ACT beginning in 2015. The more we work to avoid experiencing the normal pain of being human, the more difficult it is to create lives that are meaningful and fulfilling.
We can find meaning in our lives even when experiencing pain. This is another core concept in ACT. We live in a culture that values positivity, putting on a happy face, and keeping calm and carrying on. I don’t think this helps us. I do think that being honest about the full reality of our experiences, while also making decisions that align with our values, is how we build a life that matters to us no matter what is going on.
Moving toward a life that is meaningful and fulfilling is not as complicated as we often believe. Quite often in counseling sessions, I find myself asking a client questions like, “What would happen if you said that to your spouse/parent/co-worker etc.?” or “Could you try doing what you just said you’d like to do?” So often, moving toward the life we want is much simpler than we believe- say what you want to say, take one step (sometimes I literally mean one step, then one more step, then one more…) toward your goal. This is not to say that moving toward the life we want is easy, but that’s not the same thing as it being complicated.
Everything we do is goal-directed. This is a theory put forth by psychologist Alfred Adler many decades ago, and it has resonated with me since the beginning of my career as a counselor. In everything we do, we are striving for some form connectedness and success. I believe that exploring the goals of our behaviors helps us learn what is important to us.
Change is hard. Effort matters more than perfection. Sometimes people try something we worked on in counseling, and it doesn’t work out. Sometimes they come into a session and tell me they haven’t done the things they said they wanted to do. Sometimes they come in and tell me they have regressed in some way. This is often framed as “failure,” but I don’t think it is. I think of it as useful information that we can discuss and data points from which we can learn.
I hope these points give you a glimpse into what working with me might be like. If these assumptions and values resonate with you and you’d like to talk about how I can help you moved toward a life that is meaningful and fulfilling, please reach out! I look forward to sharing more thoughts and ideas in the near future. Thanks again for being here.