While I have worked with ample amounts of mental health concerns, here are a few I find myself doing my best work with:

Anxiety tends to be the most common of the concerns that walk through my door. Clients often come in with the main complaint being they seem to feel on edge all of the time and it impacts them in a variety of settings. Sometimes, this can manifest as muscle tension, restlessness, feeling tired all of the time, difficulty concentrating, irritability, and trouble sleeping. In other not so common displays of anxiety might be excessive fidgeting, people pleasing, thinking someone is upset with them, always feeling like there is a right and wrong choice, or overthinking past conversations or mistakes. Please know this is absolutely something that can be improved with the right treatment. 1/5 adults in the US will experience anxiety.

Depression tends to be the second most common concern that clients bring to me. However, anxiety and depression are absolutely best friends and often when we find one, the other is nearby. Much like anxiety, 1/5 adults will experience this in the US. This can manifest as depressed mood, lack of pleasure in things that used to bring you pleasure, appetite or weight changes, changes in sleep (too much or too little), restlessness or slow movements, fatigue, lack of concentration, or suicidal ideation. Sometimes, the symptoms are not as obvious. these can also be perfectionism, brain fog, social withdrawal, or feeling like there is a tough critic living in your brain.

Trauma is another main concern for a client. My clients will often experience trauma as a child or into adulthood and continue not thinking much until they come across a similar stressor and find themselves reacting in a way they aren’t proud of. For some of my past clients, this might look like reacting harsher than they would like to a child or spouse of theirs as a result of unresolved trauma. Reactions to past events can lead to a pattern of similar reactions to new events and clients are often fed up with reacting with fear, anger, or hopelessness. Clients of mine have been able to successfully connect the past event to the current reaction and are more in control of their emotions.

Anger is often a by product of quite a few other emotions or stressful events stacking up on top of each other. This is why people tend to call their anger short-fused when in reality it is a buildup of hurts spilling out to protect the hurt party. Beneath the anger, we often find our best friends anxiety and/or depression.