I know that when life gets really hard we need someone who understands and listens.  We need someone who will not judge us if we have made mistakes.  We need someone who is patient and can help us understand our problems and help us navigate our way through them.

     I know that life has a way of overwhelming us.  When we are overwhelmed things become confused.  We struggle to understand, but because of the powerful feelings it is difficult to gain clarity.  

     My approach begins by helping people understand the feelings more deeply.  I believe that feelings are often the window to the problem and the key to understanding how to improve the situation.  I find many people have a general idea of what they are feeling, but they lack a deeper perspective that can lead to clarity.

     When someone comes to me we initially spend plenty of time understanding feelings.  I work hard to see the world through eyes of the person I am working with.  In doing so I can often identify important things that should be considered.  

     With feelings come thoughts.  Often in difficult times our thinking becomes confused and perplexed.  In this confusion we attempt to solve our problems, but our actions often fail because our approach is flawed.   

     Since I am separate from the problem, I can see a problem through the eyes of the person I am working with, while maintaining enough distance to keep clarity.  This perspective helps me to help the person sort out the feelings and the thoughts and work toward different ways, more effective ways, of coping with the situation.

    Together we work toward identifying small steps that can make the problem better.   This involves paying close attention to feelings, thoughts, and actions and systematically changing them so that small steps become big changes.  Gradually the changes substantially reduce the stress, confusion, irritation, anxiety, and depression.