Alex Spare, LPC
Honest, reliable collaborator
We all have blind spots when it comes to our self-concept. Seeking support from someone who can reflect our experience and welcome all parts of us can be helpful. Clinical knowledge and intuitive understanding both play a role in fostering an authentic, healing relationship.
TRAUMA-INFORMED and emdr-trained
Social, developmental and cultural experiences--past and present-- impact our thoughts, feelings, behaviors and relationships. Beliefs we have about ourselves often grow from events that shaped us before we were aware they were doing so. Such beliefs can become strengths, and they can sometimes make us feel stuck, like we're grinding through each day. Other times, we're going along really well until trauma or grief upends us and we just need help regaining our equilibrium.
Relational-Cultural approach
The psychiatrist Jean Baker Miller wrote, "the greater the development of each individual the more able, more effective, and less needy of limiting or restricting others she or he will be." Conflict, confusion, and stress are inevitable. The more whole we feel, and the more we know ourselves and each other, the more likely we are to protect, nurture, empathize, and love. Doing so allows us to receive all of those same essentials.