What is Individual Therapy?

Every year, millions of Americans seek therapy to improve their mental health, manage life stressors, and find deeper self-understanding. One of the most effective and widely chosen forms of therapy is one-on-one individual therapy—a completely personalized approach that helps you explore your unique challenges and goals in a confidential, supportive setting.

Individual therapy, also called talk therapy or psychotherapy, is a private, one-on-one process where you meet regularly with a trained therapist—either in person or through secure teletherapy—to work through mental health concerns, life transitions, stress, or emotional difficulties. Unlike group, couples, or family therapy, individual therapy focuses solely on you—your thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and experiences.

This safe, non-judgmental space allows you to explore what’s beneath the surface of your daily life—the worries, patterns, and past experiences shaping how you think, feel, and act. Together, we’ll identify and understand the root causes of your struggles and develop tools to create meaningful, lasting change.

Whether you’re feeling overwhelmed by anxiety, battling burnout, coping with trauma, navigating a major life change, or simply wanting to understand yourself better, individual therapy can help. Common concerns addressed include:

• Anxiety, stress, and emotional overwhelm
• Perfectionism, people-pleasing, and imposter syndrome
• Burnout and identity confusion
• ADHD, neurodivergence, and emotional regulation
• Trauma and PTSD, including childhood and religious trauma
• Faith transitions, grief, and finding meaning or purpose

Even if you seem to be managing on the outside, therapy can support you in breaking free from limiting patterns and reconnecting with your true self.

A key part of my therapy approach includes self-compassion practices—tools that help you treat yourself with the kindness and understanding you’d offer a close friend, especially during difficult moments. Rather than harsh self-criticism, these practices cultivate patience, resilience, and emotional nurturing.

Through self-compassion, you can:

• Soften the inner critic fueling perfectionism and self-doubt
• Build patience and gentleness with your struggles
• Embrace your imperfections as strengths
• Create a sustainable, balanced way to move forward

Self-compassion isn’t about lowering your standards—it’s about strengthening your ability to thrive without burning out.

Individual therapy offers many unique advantages, including:

• Fully personalized care: Your therapy is tailored specifically to your needs, goals, and progress.
• Undivided attention: You have your therapist’s complete focus, allowing for deeper exploration and trust.
• Safe and confidential space: Feel fully supported without fear of judgment or breach of privacy.
• Flexible pace and scheduling: Move at a speed that feels right for you, with appointment times that fit your lifestyle.
• Unbiased perspective: Gain insights grounded in evidence-based science, free from the biases friends or family may have.
• Discover root causes: Go beyond symptoms to uncover and heal underlying emotional wounds.
• Develop coping skills: Learn strategies uniquely suited to your personality and life challenges.
• Improve relationships: Better understand yourself to create healthier connections with others.
• Emotional support: Have a reliable, professional ally who guides and validates your healing journey.

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy stands at the intersection of neuroscience, psychology and embodied healing. Its starting point is that trauma affects the body first—unresolved traumatic experiences often show up as patterns of tension, movement and dysregulated arousal in the nervous system. Because of that, the body becomes both a reservoir of information and a catalyst for change sensorimotorpsychotherapy.org.

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy is a body‑centred approach that recognises that trauma often lives in the body. Because trauma affects physiology and nervous‑system arousal first, the body becomes a key source of information and a powerful lever for healing sensorimotorpsychotherapy.org. Unlike traditional talk therapy, SP integrates cognitive understanding with somatic interventions to help clients regulate arousal and complete defensive responses that were interrupted during traumatic events.

Key principles of SP:

• Body awareness and somatic resources: Clients learn to mindfully notice physical signals of dysregulation (tight muscles, shallow breathing, posture) and use somatic techniques—such as aligning the spine, grounding through the legs or regulated breathing—to calm their nervous system sensorimotorpsychotherapy.org.
• Top‑down and bottom‑up integration: SP combines talk therapy with bottom‑up interventions that target autonomic arousal and instinctive defensive movements—areas often missed by purely cognitive approaches sensorimotorpsychotherapy.org.
• Completing defensive actions: Therapists track subtle preparatory movements (hands that want to push, feet ready to run) and, when appropriate, guide clients to safely execute those actions in session. Completing these responses restores a sense of control and mastery over the body’s defensive system sensorimotorpsychotherapy.org.
• Mindfulness and gentle movement: Sessions blend reflective conversation with mindfulness and movement practices. Clients may practice movements or breathing patterns they couldn’t perform during the trauma, helping release residual tension. 

Benefits: By addressing both mental and physical responses, SP offers a holistic path to trauma recovery. It helps regulate nervous‑system arousal, release trauma stored in the body and transform defensive impulses into sources of strength. Research and clinical practice show SP can be effective for PTSD, anxiety, depression and other trauma‑related issues

I offer compassionate, evidence-based treatments that help rewire your brain for meaningful and lasting transformation:

• Internal Family Systems (IFS): Help you understand and harmonize your inner parts with compassion.
• EMDR Therapy: Reprocess trauma and shift limiting beliefs that fuel anxiety or stuck patterns.
• Mindfulness and Somatic Techniques: Calm your nervous system and anchor you in the present moment.
• Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Heal trauma through a body-centered therapeutic approach that integrates the mind and body
• Faith-Informed Counseling: Support spiritual integration and healing from faith-related wounds.
• Self-Compassion Practices: Foster kindness and resilience for emotional growth.
• Emotionally Focused Individual Attachment Therapy: Heal attachment wounds and build secure emotional connections within yourself.

This is not surface-level talk therapy. It’s deep, personalized work that empowers you to heal and thrive.

Whether at home, work, or on the go, you can receive expert care designed around your schedule.

• Online therapy throughout California and Arizona via secure HIPAA-compliant video sessions
• In-person therapy in Orange County, CA

Ready to start your journey toward greater calm, clarity, and control? Schedule a free 15-minute consultation today to explore how individual therapy can support your growth and healing.