Counseling and Therapy for
Individuals & Couples in the Santa Cruz Area
When working with individuals and couples, I draw from an array of therapeutic tools in order to best address the challenges you’re facing, and what you personally want from your therapy experience.
Individuals
Individuals seek counseling or therapy for a variety of reasons: wanting relief from overwhelming pain, sadness or fear, trying to get “unstuck” from problem patterns, or aching to grow personally so that they can create more enriching relationships with those with which they live or work. As an experienced Santa Cruz counselor and therapist, I am well equipped to attend to those concerns and therapy is effective at accelerating the process of growth and change in all these areas. Our work often involves helping untangle problematic patterns of thinking, feeling or acting, helping you develop new ways of being in the world and then providing the safety and support for the practice and anchoring of those changes. I draw upon your innate strengths in order to access your power to make the changes you have long desired.
Couples
Couples usually seek counseling because of problems and conflicts that are causing pain and threatening their relationships. Many come for help when they are on the brink of breaking up or divorce, or because of big issues like affairs, lack of intimacy, volatile communication styles and stresses or disappointments of all sorts. Some couples find themselves going through developmental stages that present overwhelming challenges like blending families, becoming new parents, or raising teenagers. As an experienced Santa Cruz Licensed and Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT), I have been able to help many couples recover from these distressed states and build a foundation for greater connection and more fulfilling relationship. Our work together involves reducing reactivity, developing new communication skills and understandings, deepening connection and intimacy and counteracting the negative effects of destructive relationship patterns. Sometimes only one member of a couple is ready to seek help. I do work individually with people on their concerns and find that often their relationship sees vast improvement as a result.
Resources: Visit the “Resources” section of my website for Suggested Books and Articles and Websites that may be helpful to you at this time.
“Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction.”
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Photos by Toni Crossen
