Hello, and welcome! My name is Krista, and I am a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. I came to be a therapist after going through my own life trauma and challenges and recognizing how helpful it is to have someone to talk to without fearing judgment. As a therapist, non-judgment is one of my core values. I know coming to therapy can still be an intimidating step, but I promise it is worth it!
My primary approach to therapy is the narrative approach. We live our lives, make our decisions, craft our view of ourselves, and develop assumptions based on the stories we tell ourselves (how things are, how they should be, etc.). Narrative therapy shines the light on these stories to explore which might no longer serve us, and which were perhaps never quite right. I use this approach in conjunction with several others, including mindfulness, cognitive restructuring, behavioral activation, and humanistic approaches.
You are the expert of your life. It is not my job to tell you what your experiences are - you already know this! Sometimes, however, we are so attached to certain ways of being or to certain outcomes or interpretations that we don't see other options or perspectives. This is NOT to say your experience is invalid (it absolutely is!!!), but instead to explore other paths forward that you might not have had access to previously. To do so, we first have to get out of survival mode, which often includes applying coping, decision-making, and communication skills. We, as a society, also don't work much on learning communication skills and styles, particularly when it comes to emotions and personal experiences. So, I will often work with clients on finding the communication and coping skills that work best for them.
