Hannah Courtney

The clinical stuff:

I'm an LCPC in IL with 6+ years of experience, and I earned my MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Palo Alto University.

I've worked in a variety of settings, including hospitals, residential rehabilitation, transitional housing, IOP/PHP, group, and outpatient with individuals, couples, and families. I've worked with children, adolescents, adults, and seniors.

My most passionate areas of practice are personality disorders, neurodevelopmental disorders, mood disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, women's issues, multicultural/marginalized populations, dissociative disorders, fostering healthy relationships with food and body image, and LGBTQIA+/gender identity.

The humanizing stuff:

I, myself, am a former 'child prodigy' that was 'so mature for your age' and 'so well-behaved' no one ever had to worry about me. Sound familiar? I think we know the drill here. That child grew into an adult with mental health struggles, poor coping mechanisms, distorted thinking patterns, and no idea what any of it meant and why it was happening to me. I remember those times where I wished I could just be 'normal' (as if such a thing exists) and desired to escape from my own head. I hadn't had any psychoeducation and didn't know what I didn't know. I also delayed my healing through fear-driven avoidance, denial, pride, and self-sabotage.

I'm still, and to some extent will always be, a work in progress, but I have experienced firsthand that the brain can rewire, healing is possible, and the transformative work of therapy is the most life-changing and important thing you'll ever do for yourself.

I don't just talk the talk. I have walked the walk, and I continue to walk the walk. After all, my conviction as a therapist is: I cannot ask my clients to do things that I haven't done or am not willing to do.

I have an eclectic approach to therapy, which means that I tailor treatment to the individual by incorporating techniques from multiple, evidence-based modalities rather than adhering to a single school of thought.

I work from a trauma-informed lens, and the study and treatment of trauma is the core from which all my other practice stems. I am extremely passionate about the effects of trauma on mental and physical health as well as our thoughts/feelings/behaviors, and I am passionate about neuroscience, attachment theory, human development, and mind-body connection.

Yes, I am the walking-trope-of-a-therapist that highly values psychodynamic work. I don't believe in viewing your childhood, caregiver attachments, and past relationships through the lens of blaming everything on someone else or being treated as if you are a helpless victim to be pitied. I don't think any of this exploration we embark on should involve concepts like 'blame' and 'fault'. That is all-or-nothing thinking, a distorted thinking trap that we often fall into, and the goal is to aim for balanced, middle-ground thinking.

My approach focuses on developing the self in such a way that you are better equipped to navigate and cope with those uncontrollable things all around you. The other things don't necessarily change, but YOU do. The truth of the matter is that we don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are. Take, for example, the way a loved song from childhood can take on entirely different meaning, feeling, and even sound when you revisit it from the perspective of an adolescent lens or an adult lens. The song didn't change, but you did.

I believe that the path to healing involves self-actualization, living in alignment with ones core values/desires, experiencing safety and secure attachment, and falling in love with yourself and the world you walk upon.

This path entails developing healthy and productive coping mechanisms, such as distress tolerance, radical acceptance, cognitive challenging, creative expression, emotional/nervous system regulation, mindfulness, grounding, and reconnection with the self through mind-body connection/self-care. It also entails trauma processing and self-exploration.

Often--such as in the case of the chronic people-pleasers, the hustling workaholics, the caretakers, the perpetual survivalists--we lose a sense of who we are, or perhaps never got to focus on ourselves long enough to know in the first place. Perhaps you learned that for YOU to be okay, you must prioritize the needs of others; you cannot be okay if they are not okay, and they are not okay unless you regulate them and keep them regulated. Maybe it feels like your self-worth is directly tied to how successful you are, how much you self-sacrifice and push yourself, how 'strong' you appear.

Having meaningful connections might seem only possible through a filtered version of you: one that isn't a burden, that is what others want you to be; where all the parts of you deemed 'bad' throughout your life have been shunned away to the deepest depths where they lie buried beneath guilt and shame.

I will guide you through your journey of facing shame/guilt; of understanding trauma wounds and the reactions they drive; of recognizing the critical inner voice, distorted thinking, and negative self-regard embedded in your psyche and driving you. We'll learn to sit with unpleasant emotions and process painful experiences, and we'll develop coping skills to ensure you have the capacity to safely do so. Along the way, you will discover a sense of self, empowerment, self-trust, and the most alive, whole, and authentic YOU that has been waiting to emerge.