What was your path to becoming a therapist? What inspired you to choose this profession?

Honestly, I believe I came to the field having had a very negative experience with my first psychotherapist! She looked smart, talked smart but she was not listening to me!
That instinct of “this can’t be right” and the awakening of my “inner compass” eventually led me to another therapist and subsequently to many positive and transformational experiences with my own therapy, my trainings, and my eventual work with patients. Careful listening and observation as well as a generous helping of curiosity and humility is at the heart of what makes this work both challenging and rewarding- both for the therapist as well as for the patient. This work is all about collaboration- something that my first experience did not make room for- but nevertheless really had an impact on me and set me on a lifetime trajectory in the healing profession.

If there was one thing you wish people knew about the therapy experience who might be hesitant to try it, what would that be?

I wish more people knew that therapy has truly become a countercultural experience! The devices are put down- did you get that? The devices are put down or silenced. There is the invitation to drop into a place of deep listening. There is this amazing experience of connecting to oneself and one’s thoughts in the presence of an empathic, non judging presence. Sometimes that stirs things up- sometimes one really gets to the heart of the matter. Sometimes it’s quite emotional and sometimes there is that AHA! moment. Whatever comes it is in what the profession calls “the holding environment” It is safe, it is contained it is valued- held like a caring parent holds a child.