Sarah Patterson-Mills

If you're moving through a big transition, maybe one you didn't choose, you may be finding that the ways you used to cope just aren't working anymore. Many of the people I work with are trying to adapt to a new chapter and build the skills to meet it. Often they're also weighing how a change might affect the people they love, or how to set a boundary and live with the response they get for it. Some come in carrying an experience that didn't go well, unsure about trying again. Much of our work traces how your family of origin and earliest relationships still echo in what you're facing today. After more than 25 years doing this, I've found that connecting the past to the present is where change usually begins.

I'm not trying to be Freud, but I do believe in taking the past, learning from those early relationships and the memories we don't always realize we carry, and seeing how they shape the present. My doctoral training is in contextual and systemic change, which really just means I look at you inside the whole web of relationships and circumstances you live in, not only the symptom in front of us. I'm innovative and personalized in how I work, so it's not one size fits all and I don't work from a handbook. What we do grows out of what actually comes up between us. I'll even ask whether you like homework, because some people do and some don't, and either way is fine. Now and then I'll borrow from approaches like Gottman, but by and large, what we build is made for you.

The first session or two is really about getting to know each other and building some trust. There's no right way to start, and nothing you need to have figured out ahead of time. I work hard early on to make sure you feel genuinely heard, because that's what makes it safe to say what's really going on. I'll notice the small things, the people and the details that matter in your life, and I remember them, a habit I picked up years ago as a school counselor. From there we figure out the path forward together, one step at a time, so each session picks up where the last one left off.