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Based in Beaverton, Oregon, serving clients across Oregon and Washington, in person and online.
PSYCHOEDUCATION
Identity & Growth
You don't need to have overwhelming symptoms, a crisis, or something you consider obviously “wrong” to come to therapy. Sometimes the question is simply:
“Who am I now and is the life I'm living actually working for me?”
Identity isn't something we figure out once.
Our understanding of ourselves develops over time. It can be shaped by our families, relationships, culture, experiences, roles, successes, failures, expectations, and the environments we've learned to function within. Some parts of identity may feel deeply rooted and others change as we do.
Sometimes growth begins because something happened. Sometimes nothing dramatic happened at all.
You just started noticing your life doesn't “fit” you anymore.
What can this look like?
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Questioning things you once felt certain aboutRealizing that a role you've been very good at no longer fits
Wondering who you are outside of your work, relationships, family, or responsibilities
Making choices you don't actually want to make
Wondering what matters to you outside of what you're “supposed” to do
Understanding your patterns but continuing to repeat them
Realizing you've spent years becoming the person other people needed you to be without knowing what you need
Growth doesn't have to
mean becoming someone else.
There is a lot of pressure to constantly improve ourselves: become more productive, confident, disciplined, successful, social, organized, resilient, or somehow a “better version” of ourselves.
Therapy doesn't have to be another place where you're given a list of things about yourself to improve. Sometimes growth means changing or understanding why you do what you do. It may mean recognizing patterns that once served you but no longer fit, becoming more comfortable making choices based on your own values, or deciding that something you've spent years trying to change about yourself isn't actually the problem.
How can therapy help?
Therapy can provide room to examine your life and consider what still fits, what doesn't, and what you want to do about it.
We may explore the experiences and relationships that shaped how you understand yourself, the roles you've learned to occupy, the expectations you carry, and the patterns you find yourself repeating.
We can look at what feels meaningful, what feels obligatory, what you want more or less of, and where there may be a gap between the life you're living and the life you would choose. We may also look at what guides you through life, your values, and how those may have changed over time.