What happens in therapy with you?

Step 1: Empowered choice when choosing your therapist

In the past, when you decided to find a therapist from a place that was limiting and you just settled with who seemed available, you got nearly turned off to therapy altogether. You could not bolt out of the therapy session any sooner but you stuck around because if you learned anything growing up, the problem was you, not the therapist. Give yourself a chance from the beginning and not bypass your intuition. Choosing a therapist shouldn’t feel like being stuck between a rock and a hard place. Goodness of fit between therapist and client is one of the best indicators of therapy succeeding, not the method used or therapist’s trainings or credentials.

When you are able to make the first step of trusting yourself enough to choose a therapist you feel will fit you, you are already building self-esteem, tapping into your intuition, asserting your boundaries - all goals I hope will address the core reason you are seeking therapy. And if for any reason you feel like therapy with me is not a fit, I welcome a curious and open conversation.

My goal at this point in our consultation call and intake session is to help you work with the therapist that will most be able to get what you need out of therapy, even if that therapist doesn’t end up being me. Whether our interaction is brief in a 20 minute call or we continue to work together for years, I consider how I can help you in the time we do have at this intersection.

Step 2: Holding the frame, No spaghetti arms 

Have you ever seen Dirty Dancing and Johnny kept going on about “no spaghetti arms”? He taught Baby to hold the frame and respect their dance space so they could dance together beautifully. So how is this relevant to our work?

Your Asian American immigrant parents made up their own rules as the mood suited them so you were left to mind-read, anticipate, scan, and somehow still got in trouble. Fast-forward to adult relationships – your worst experience was when your friend was kind to your face but upset with you behind your back and because they didn’t voice their boundaries with you, it led to drama, headache, and overwhelm. In our work, I have given thoughtful consideration to my office policies and how I structure my work with you so that you have a clear understanding of how we will work. AND we can have a conversation about how you feel about these office policies. Even reading this website right now, is creating our frame for potential work. Congrats to you on getting this far, by the way!

Step 3: Permission Questions

You’ve received so much well-intentioned and not so well-intentioned advice from your parents, friends, boyfriend, and even the “suggested posts” on your social media. You try each piece of advice out because you hope the people closest to you know what’s best for you and you don’t want to let them down (there’s your people pleaser part at it again), however it has only gotten you where you are now, with more anxiety and overwhelm that you are the one to blame for the advice not working for you. Feeling like a burden starts to creep in.

In therapy, permission questions allow you the space to consider how a question, insight, or activity will impact you. It might look like me asking “how does that fit for you?” or “I’m curious how ___ affected you” after I make an observation or suggest an art activity. Sometimes you might not know the answer as you aren’t used to people considering how what they say affects you, and that’s okay. What is important is for us to build that emotional muscle, so that with time you will pause to consider what fits best for you, rather than reacting automatically. 

Step 4: Making new pathways and connections - the well-trodden path vs new path

You are frustrated and shame yourself for continuing to fall into unhelpful thinking patterns.

I’m a smart person, why do I keep falling in the same hole?

Well, imagine a hiking path in the woods. The well-trodden path has had years of people walking on it, so that it has become clear and distinct. Then you notice a couple people have decided to take a different path through the woods but this path has more rocks, leaves, and branches and it is not as noticeable as the well-trodden path. 

I identify these unhelpful patterns (aka the well-trodden path) with gentleness as I observe how they have been helpful to you in the past (and you may say they aren’t helpful at all, let’s get rid of them! And that is okay too). 

We explore new pathways that may fit for you and through time in therapy, continue to prune those pathways so it becomes the more clear and preferred path when you are faced with a challenging situation. We shift focus to what environments and people in your life best help to reinforce these new pathways.

Step 5: Art Therapy - connection with self using creativity

You don’t know who you are and how to choose what’s best for you. Play is not something you were allowed to do much growing up. You were looking out for your parents and taking care of your younger siblings. Now you dabble in crafting and choosing cute things, however it feels meaningless in the scheme of things.

Enter, art therapy - your playground to explore what does and doesn’t work for you with no right or wrong way to express yourself. I’ll be there to help you understand how your art expression ties to your mental health state. Just like you can’t argue with someone about what their favorite color is, art therapy encourages you to make your own choices in a low-risk way that can be soothing at the same time. (See more about art therapy here)

Step 6: Values-driven life - sustainability plan

You haven’t been wanting to find a therapist before because you didn’t want to disturb the status quo. You are worried that your family and even some of your friends will disown you for doing therapy and finding your own way apart from what they have been telling you to do. Yet at the same time, as you are turning 30 you are craving to get out of this auto-pilot routine that has brought you no real joy and anxiety.

Our work together will shift your focus to how you are showing up for yourself. And we learn that we cannot control how others respond when we do so.

We are a gear in the wheels of our family system, work system, friend system, relationship system, etc. When you enter therapy, your gear may start turning in a different direction due to the insights you gather. Your systems may shift because of this and that may be an unintended but also unavoidable result of doing the emotional work to have the life you want. Not to fear… we will build emotional muscles to tolerate any discomfort from this shift so you can continue to choose to live the life of your choosing, not what others have determined for you.