Individual Therapy
Therapy That Makes Room for All of You
You don't have to arrive at therapy with a perfectly organized explanation of what's wrong or a clear list of goals. You might know exactly what you want to work on, or you might simply know that something isn't working the way you want it to anymore.
Individual therapy offers space to slow things down, understand the patterns you've developed, and figure out what actually helps. My approach is collaborative, trauma-informed, and intentionally non-pathologizing. Rather than starting from the assumption that something about you needs to be fixed, we'll get curious about how your experiences, relationships, identity, environment, and nervous system have shaped the ways you move through the world.
Therapy Without Having to Translate Yourself
A lot of energy can go into figuring out whether it's safe to tell a therapist the whole story.
For LGBTQ+, neurodivergent, kinky, polyamorous, and ethically non-monogamous clients, therapy can sometimes involve explaining or defending parts of your life before you ever get to talk about what actually brought you there.
You shouldn't have to spend your therapy session teaching your therapist that your identity or relationship structure isn't automatically the problem.
These experiences are understood as meaningful parts of your context here. When they're relevant, we'll talk about them. When they're not, we won't manufacture a problem around them.
What Therapy Looks Like Here
There isn't one predetermined path through therapy.
Some sessions may involve understanding where a pattern came from. Others may focus on what's happening right now, experimenting with practical strategies, working with difficult emotions, or noticing what's happening in your body and nervous system.
We might explore attachment and relationships, trauma, executive functioning, identity, shame, boundaries, emotional regulation, or the expectations you've learned to carry.
The work changes depending on what you need.
What stays consistent is that therapy is collaborative. I'll bring clinical knowledge, curiosity, perspective, and sometimes a question you weren't particularly hoping I'd ask. You bring expertise in what it's actually like to be you.
We figure things out together.
Areas of Focus
Individual Therapy vs Relationship Therapy
Sometimes what brings you to therapy involves a relationship, but that doesn't necessarily mean you need relationship therapy.
Individual therapy can be a good place to understand your own emotions, attachment patterns, boundaries, needs, or choices within a relationship. Relationship therapy brings partners together to work directly with the patterns happening between them.
If you're not sure which makes the most sense, that's something we can talk about during an initial consultation.
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Pretty much anything that is making life harder, taking up more space than you'd like, or leaving you curious about yourself. That might include anxiety, trauma, ADHD/ASD, burnout, identity, relationships, boundaries, shame, life transitions, or patterns you understand intellectually but somehow keep finding yourself in anyway.
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No. “Something isn't working and I'm not entirely sure what” is a perfectly reasonable place to begin. Part of therapy can be slowing things down enough to understand what you're experiencing and what you want to be different.
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Absolutely. Relationships are often an important part of individual therapy. We can explore your own needs, emotions, boundaries, attachment patterns, choices, and experiences without your partner (or partners) participating. If the goal becomes changing a pattern that belongs to the relationship as a whole, we can talk about whether relationship therapy might be more appropriate.
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In individual therapy, you are the client and the work centers your experience and goals. In relationship therapy, the relationship becomes the focus of treatment. Rather than helping one person figure out what the other person is doing wrong, we're looking together at the patterns developing between you.
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There isn't a script. Some sessions involve making sense of past experiences or relationship patterns. Others are more focused on what's happening right now, practical strategies, emotional regulation, identity, or simply creating enough space to hear yourself think. Therapy changes as your needs change.
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Previous therapy not working doesn't necessarily tell us whether therapy itself can be useful. Sometimes the approach, timing, relationship with the therapist, or goals simply weren't the right fit. You're welcome to tell me what didn't work before. That's useful information for figuring out what might need to be different this time.
Individual Therapy FAQ
Therapy in Richmond, Virginia and Online
Individual therapy is available in person in Richmond, Virginia, and through telehealth for adults located throughout Virginia and New Jersey.
Sessions are by appointment.
If you're looking for a space where you can bring more of yourself into the room without first having to explain why your identity, brain, relationships, or way of moving through the world is valid, you're welcome to reach out.