ADDRESSING DEPRESSION
Sadness/Depression
Depression can manifest as an enduring heaviness that seeps into every aspect of your life, making even the simplest tasks feel insurmountable. Unlike fleeting moments of sadness, this deeper emotional struggle often dims the colors of daily experiences, leaving you feeling detached from those around you.
Sadness/Depression
Depression can feel like a deeper sadness. It can be described as a longer-lasting feeling that affects your ability to function in the way you typically do. Negative, intrusive thoughts get in the way of joy. Coping mechanisms become more of a crutch. You are aware that something needs to change but you lack the motivation to figure this out. Or start something new that may be helpful. Feeling this way – especially if new to this feeling – can be scary.
Loneliness on its own is difficult. Depression magnifies this feeling. Things feel bigger and more complicated than they have to be. Difficult thoughts, negative feedback loop, hopelessness – I get it.
Depression may at times go hand in hand with anxiety, irritability and frustration. It is not uncommon to also experience waking up earlier than you want to, insomnia, overall fatigue and changes in your weight.
Here are a few types of depression that I help:
Bipolar disorder/depression
Grief and loss
Post-partum depression
Situational depression
How I Help Clients Manage Their Sadness and Depression
You don’t have to stay stuck in this place. Depression can narrow your world and drain your energy, but these patterns can be understood and worked through with support. Therapy offers a space to slow things down and understand how depression is impacting your day-to-day life—your motivation, relationships, routines, and the ways you may be pulling back from activities or relying on coping strategies that no longer feel helpful— while I work with you to identify patterns, challenge unhelpful beliefs, and build more supportive ways of coping, so you can begin taking small, meaningful steps toward change at a pace that feels manageable.
KEY AREAS OF FOCUS:
Grief & Loss
Grief and loss can take many forms—whether through the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, or the loss of a job or role that once felt central to your life. Grief is the body, mind, and heart’s natural way of healing, yet the process can feel incredibly challenging.
The stages of grief can help us understand and normalize what we’re feeling, but they don’t always unfold in a neat or predictable order. You may move through denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance in your own unique sequence, or revisit certain emotions over time. This is a normal part of the healing process.
At times, grief can feel overwhelming, stressful, or even debilitating. The emotional weight may feel heavy and unrelenting, and you might find yourself struggling to move forward—almost as if life is on pause.
Grief is deeply personal. There is no “right” way to grieve, and no two people experience it in the same way. Because of this, the support each person needs is different. Therapy offers a space to honor your experience, understand your emotions, and find a path toward healing at your own pace.
How I Help Clients Manage Their Grief & Loss
You don’t have to carry this alone. Grief can make the world feel paused, heavy, and unfamiliar, especially when the loss touches every part of your life. Therapy offers a steady, supportive space to sit with what you’re experiencing, make sense of the emotions as they come and go, and gently find a way forward without rushing or minimizing your loss. If this resonates, I invite you to reach out and begin the healing process in a way that honors your experience.
In our work together, I draw from evidence-based and relational approaches to help you process grief in a way that feels supportive and grounded. This may include insight-oriented therapy to understand how the loss is impacting you, cognitive and mindfulness-based strategies to manage overwhelming thoughts and emotions, and space to process the relationship, meaning, and identity shifts that often accompany grief
Low Self-Esteem
It is not uncommon to compare ourselves to others. At work, you may compare yourself to the productivity or success of your colleagues. In friendships, you may compare yourself to other friends in your circle. In romantic relationships, you may compare yourself to your partner’s previous relationships. To help combat this low self-esteem, you may seek validation. Once again, this is not abnormal. But too much seeking validation may indicate low self-esteem. Low self-esteem will cause you to think negatively about who you are – it can impact how you live your life, function at work, perform academically, and behave in relationships. Depressive and anxiety symptoms typically feed into this doubt.
How I Help With Low Self-Esteem
In working with low self-esteem, I help you understand and change the patterns that keep self-doubt rooted in place. I use cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to identify and challenge comparisons as well as modify self-critical thoughts. We also uncover core beliefs that shape how you see yourself and aim to replace them with more balanced and realistic perspectives. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) would help you notice self-judging thoughts without getting stuck in them, reduce the need for external validation, and reconnect with personal values that guide meaningful choices. Mindfulness-based strategies are used to increase awareness of your reaction to comparison which ultimately creates a knee jerk reaction to feeling rejected. The goal is to stop self-criticizing, increase your confidence and to stop avoiding. Let me guide you on a different path in strengthening your internal self-worth.
How I Work With Clients
I use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to challenge negative thoughts, Acceptance Commitment Therapy to shift your perspective, Mindfulness to keep you emotionally centered, and Solution-Focused Therapy to turn your goals into action.
Helping clients navigate life, relationships,
and personal growth for over 20 years.
GET IN TOUCH
(312) 346-5156