I work with people who are ready to understand themselves, not just manage symptoms. Most therapy teaches you techniques to calm yourself down, get through difficult moments. That has its place. But if you're tired of band-aids and ready to know why you're anxious, why you hate yourself, where the voices in your head came from - that's different work.

The approach is depth-oriented. We talk about your life now and your past. We pay attention to patterns, to what you do without thinking, to the stories you tell yourself. I ask questions that might not have easy answers. You learn how certain messages got installed, why you believed them, and what keeps them running. The work happens between sessions as much as during them. This takes longer and goes deeper, but it changes what's possible.

Religious systems can teach you that who you are is fundamentally wrong. Even after leaving, the messages stay. You feel guilty for things that aren't wrong. You can't trust your own judgment because you were taught that trusting yourself leads to damnation. We look at the specific messages you absorbed and where they came from.

You can manage the shame or you can understand where it came from. One helps you survive. The other helps you live freely.

You're out, but you're not free. You still hear the voices saying something about you is wrong. Family rejection, religious trauma, years of hiding - you thought coming out would fix it, but the shame didn't leave when you did. We look at where the shame lives and how it got there.

Managing discrimination is survival. Understanding where the shame lives is freedom.

Your kids trigger you in ways you didn't expect. You know what not to do - your childhood showed you exactly what damages kids. The problem is, knowing what to avoid doesn't tell you what to do instead. You're hypervigilant, terrified you'll repeat what was done to you. We look at what's getting triggered and why.

Techniques help you cope. Understanding changes what you pass down.

Men get taught that emotions mean weakness, that pain is something you push through, that needing support means you're not man enough. When trauma hits, you respond the way you were trained - by shutting it down, controlling it, or letting it out as anger. We look at what happened to you and how you learned to respond to pain.

Managing the anger gets you through the day. Understanding where it came from lets you choose what to do with it.