Clinical Counseling and Therapy

Sadness is a common emotion triggered by situations that cause emotional pain, like breakups, academic failures, life transitions, or conflicts with loved ones. Although often seen as negative, sadness actually signals a need for comfort or assistance. Even when feeling sad, people can still find joy in activities like listening to music, eating, and spending time with loved ones. Depression, on the other hand, is different from sadness. It involves persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness over an extended period, often impairing daily functioning and leading to physical symptoms such as
fatigue and headaches.

Anxiety is a normal reaction to stress or challenging situations and can even be helpful or motivating, like before a competition or test. However, if anxiety becomes overwhelming, persists beyond the stressful event, or arises unexpectedly, it may be considered clinical anxiety. This can manifest as physical symptoms like difficulty breathing, rapid heart rate, sweating, dizziness, and chronic fatigue, among others. These symptoms can have a negative impact on daily life. I use different approaches to help clients develop and implement coping mechanisms to manage these
distressing sensations.

Every person experiences trauma. Trauma is any event that occurs when a person was not emotionally equipped to handle the event at that time.

When a person experiences internal or external stimuli, similar to the trauma, (ex. being yelled at), the person may "re-experience" the event. The brain will release similar sensations, emotions and thoughts. This is referred to as a "trigger" which can take the form of an emotional, and sometimes physical remembrance of a traumatic memory.

EMDR stands for "Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing" and helps to processes traumatic memories which reduces the intensity of the feelings and negative beliefs attached to the memories. Some benefits of EMDR are develop positive self-beliefs, work through difficult feelings, learn tools to manage distress, remember instead of re-live trauma, process traumatic memories and develop distress tolerance skills.

Sexual orientation and gender identity is an important component of our self concept. Individuals who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender often face abandonment by friends, rejection by their families, suicidal ideation and/or self harm urges.

It is a priority, as an affirming counselor, to ensure clients feel safe and able to process their feelings and experiences with me.