Jeremy Kiskadden

You can’t break out of a cage you’re still trying to decorate. I’ve been many people’s 4th/5th/8th/9th therapist and been told they felt like something finally clicked for them. I care about it clicking. My approach is based on self-compassion and living an integrated life. Even if you’re motivated to change, it’s still hard because negative events can shape beliefs about the world and ourselves that we often don’t even realize we hold. So we start with self-compassion, and then work on trying to bring our actions into alignment with our goals. I’ve been a therapist for over a decade now, and I promise – self-compassion is the move.

I approach therapy in layers - 1, we'll use CBT to identify thought patterns and respond to them differently in the moment. 2, Taking a depth approach to look at how certain beliefs and narratives were formed in your life and whether they're still true or useful for you. Where most people get stuck is when we have these stories about ourselves or the world that are tied to the hard things we’ve gone through, because they feel true. Therapy doesn’t work by trying to erase or rewrite it, it works by comparing your experiences of when that’s been true or not. There’s a structure to it, and I really try to give clients the tools therapists use to understand themselves. I also emphasize self-compassion. People generally blame themselves to feel they have some control, but I really try to differentiate a client’s natural sense of wanting to better themselves from energy that’s just anger directed at themselves. It's about integrating your goals and energy.

Therapy isn't a magic trick I'm performing - it's more like learning how to do them yourself. I really strive not just to help clients through the issues they come to therapy for but also to learn new ways to think about problems in their lives. I also do emphasize diagnosis because some issues require some specific coping skills. I occasionally go on little rants about the brain as well, because as far as I'm concerned - none of us get to choose how our brains work, so we'd might as well be self-compassionate and learn to live with them instead of fighting the imperfections.