Jamie Woelk

There’s important information about who you are and what matters most to you in the places inside of you that often get criticized or ignored because they seem weird, scary, impolite or “too much.” I hope we can give those spaces some attention so that, over time, you can come to trust more deeply that it’s good to be you. In my work, with clients and with my own patterns, shifts tend to happen from gradually opening to more and more of our actual internal experience. We inquire into what is already happening inside of us with spacious, curious, friendly attention. Whatever you’re experiencing in a given moment is a great place to start. Talking about the problems in your life is also a fine starting point. All kinds of experience are welcome, though we do usually give emotions more attention than things like explanations and solutions.

Some therapists relatively quickly devise a plan to use certain techniques to help alleviate a problem. Others take a more open ended approach, where the answer to “how will therapy help?” is less defined, especially early in therapy. Change happens through coming to understand yourself more deeply and learning to relate differently with thoughts, feelings, and patterns. That second approach is closer to how I work. Some of the models and practices I draw from the most include Internal Family Systems (parts work), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and psychoanalytic thought.

I tend to speak to things that often get ignored because of conventional socials script. In other words, I like to point at the elephants in the room. But I don’t believe in “tough love.” I think most of us have gotten plenty of that already.

It’s important to me to slow down and meet you with a lot of spaciousness. Pausing in places that feel uncertain and sort of awkward can allow the deeper things that want attention to show up.

I’ll get it wrong sometimes, and hopefully over time you’ll get more and more comfortable with telling me so. The tension that arises in our interactions is usually a rich source of information about patterns and challenges in other relationships.