Therapy With Annette
The therapy process can be a life enriching experience. The rewards that can come from therapy include deepened insight and understanding into yourself and your loved ones, increased compassion for yourself and others, a stronger felt sense of self, expanded personal empowerment, more fulfilling relationships, forgiveness, and tranquility.
Life's challenges are full of growth potential. My intention as a therapist is to work with that potential with you, by coming to deeply understand who you are, and appreciate how you have come to face your present circumstances, and the brilliance of the coping strategies you have developed, even if you no longer find those strategies helpful, and it is ultimately your goal to change them.
It is always true that the human organism has developed as it has and functions as it does for the most logical, functional, and most intelligent of reasons. It may just be that those reasons no longer apply, and the coping strategies that once worked so very well no longer do.
My desire is to work with you and support you as you explore your internal workings and your innate strengths, to be your ally and guide as you nurture the greatest desires you have for your life, and the changes you long for. As your therapist, I will accompany you, hand-in-hand, shoulder-to-shoulder, as you explore what can be an arduous process. Though it is work, an attuned therapy process will naturally give rise to right solutions from within you, for you, the client. And this can be very exciting, inspiring, and life affirming. It is my honor to accompany my clients through such a process, and to witness the transformations that inevitably arise.
I will work with you as a team, fostering empowerment in you and in our relationship. I use methods based in neurobiology, attachment theories, somatic and experiential therapy approaches, systems centered therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and transpersonal theories. I encourage your interests in other forms of healing work such as meditation, yoga, exercise, body work, healthy nutrition, and readings.
My hope is to create an intensely caring, supportive, and trusting relationship with you, and an environment where you can be yourself, free of judgment, where you will be understood and enjoyed.
A Bit About Me...Personally and How I Got Here. I grew up in a large, struggling family with my single mother at the helm. I am Latina: My mother was a Latina from south Texas, and my father was a Mexican National. My family was and is hardworking, creative, and ingenious. We were poor and there were scant models directing us kids on how to move ourselves out of a struggling lifestyle. But the family values of hard work, creativity, and ingenuity spurred me on, and I believed I could do more with my life. I was 29 years old when I entered college as a single mother myself. I graduated summa cum laude from the University of Texas at Austin with an undergrad in Social Work in 1998. I was voted "Most Outstanding Student" by the faculty of the School of Social Work in recognition of my GPA, volunteer hours, school involvement, and my year-long work in the research center under scholarship and fellowship studying adoption trends in minority families. With that recognition, I was awarded a scholarship to assist with my master's degree in Social Work, which I completed at UT Austin in 2000. I obtained my clinical hours at LifeWorks, SAFE Alliance, and with Psychotherapy Associates of Arlene Montgomery, PhD, LCSW-S. I have been in private practice since 2003. I am married and have two grown and successful children who know it is their responsibility to themselves and to the world to pursue their dreams and to believe in themselves.
In my time as a therapist, aside from the many continuing educational courses I have taken, I have formally studied neurobiological, experiential, cognitive, and systemic approaches to individual and couples therapy, including the John Gottman's method for working with couples, Harville Hendrix's Imago Therapy for couples, Candyce Ossefort-Russell's Dynamic Enriched Experiential Psychotherapy ("DEEP") for processing intensely emotional experiences, and Peter Levine's three year training in Somatic Experiencing ("SE") for working with trauma and other stuck emotions, for which I achieved the designation of Somatic Experiencing Practitioner ("SEP"). I am currently enrolled in Stan Tatkin's PACT model for couples counseling.
In my free time, I enjoy being in nature, preferably while hiking, cycling, gardening, taking photographs, reading, writing, and spending time with friends and family.
Life's challenges are full of growth potential. My intention as a therapist is to work with that potential with you, by coming to deeply understand who you are, and appreciate how you have come to face your present circumstances, and the brilliance of the coping strategies you have developed, even if you no longer find those strategies helpful, and it is ultimately your goal to change them.
It is always true that the human organism has developed as it has and functions as it does for the most logical, functional, and most intelligent of reasons. It may just be that those reasons no longer apply, and the coping strategies that once worked so very well no longer do.
My desire is to work with you and support you as you explore your internal workings and your innate strengths, to be your ally and guide as you nurture the greatest desires you have for your life, and the changes you long for. As your therapist, I will accompany you, hand-in-hand, shoulder-to-shoulder, as you explore what can be an arduous process. Though it is work, an attuned therapy process will naturally give rise to right solutions from within you, for you, the client. And this can be very exciting, inspiring, and life affirming. It is my honor to accompany my clients through such a process, and to witness the transformations that inevitably arise.
I will work with you as a team, fostering empowerment in you and in our relationship. I use methods based in neurobiology, attachment theories, somatic and experiential therapy approaches, systems centered therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and transpersonal theories. I encourage your interests in other forms of healing work such as meditation, yoga, exercise, body work, healthy nutrition, and readings.
My hope is to create an intensely caring, supportive, and trusting relationship with you, and an environment where you can be yourself, free of judgment, where you will be understood and enjoyed.
A Bit About Me...Personally and How I Got Here. I grew up in a large, struggling family with my single mother at the helm. I am Latina: My mother was a Latina from south Texas, and my father was a Mexican National. My family was and is hardworking, creative, and ingenious. We were poor and there were scant models directing us kids on how to move ourselves out of a struggling lifestyle. But the family values of hard work, creativity, and ingenuity spurred me on, and I believed I could do more with my life. I was 29 years old when I entered college as a single mother myself. I graduated summa cum laude from the University of Texas at Austin with an undergrad in Social Work in 1998. I was voted "Most Outstanding Student" by the faculty of the School of Social Work in recognition of my GPA, volunteer hours, school involvement, and my year-long work in the research center under scholarship and fellowship studying adoption trends in minority families. With that recognition, I was awarded a scholarship to assist with my master's degree in Social Work, which I completed at UT Austin in 2000. I obtained my clinical hours at LifeWorks, SAFE Alliance, and with Psychotherapy Associates of Arlene Montgomery, PhD, LCSW-S. I have been in private practice since 2003. I am married and have two grown and successful children who know it is their responsibility to themselves and to the world to pursue their dreams and to believe in themselves.
In my time as a therapist, aside from the many continuing educational courses I have taken, I have formally studied neurobiological, experiential, cognitive, and systemic approaches to individual and couples therapy, including the John Gottman's method for working with couples, Harville Hendrix's Imago Therapy for couples, Candyce Ossefort-Russell's Dynamic Enriched Experiential Psychotherapy ("DEEP") for processing intensely emotional experiences, and Peter Levine's three year training in Somatic Experiencing ("SE") for working with trauma and other stuck emotions, for which I achieved the designation of Somatic Experiencing Practitioner ("SEP"). I am currently enrolled in Stan Tatkin's PACT model for couples counseling.
In my free time, I enjoy being in nature, preferably while hiking, cycling, gardening, taking photographs, reading, writing, and spending time with friends and family.
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Who I Work With
Adults (20-100+) Adolescents (13-19) Couples (Hetero, LGBTQ) Families Parents Focus Areas Relationships (Hetero, LGBTQ) Couples (Hetero, LGBTQ) Divorce and Separation Parenting Aging Depression Anxiety Trauma Grief and Loss |
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Right Therapist
A therapist who is right for you will feel right to you. You will feel at ease talking to your therapist, and you will feel understood and validated. You may get uncomfortable with the therapy process at times, but your experience with your therapist should bring you back to a feeling of safety. You may feel comfortable with a particular therapist because of preferences you have based on gender, culture, languages spoken, type of training and education, location, cost, or anything that is important to you. No one therapist is right for everyone, and finding a therapist with whom you feel comfortable is critical. Only you will know if a particular therapist is right for you. So please, do ask me questions about anything you feel you need to know.
A therapist who is right for you will feel right to you. You will feel at ease talking to your therapist, and you will feel understood and validated. You may get uncomfortable with the therapy process at times, but your experience with your therapist should bring you back to a feeling of safety. You may feel comfortable with a particular therapist because of preferences you have based on gender, culture, languages spoken, type of training and education, location, cost, or anything that is important to you. No one therapist is right for everyone, and finding a therapist with whom you feel comfortable is critical. Only you will know if a particular therapist is right for you. So please, do ask me questions about anything you feel you need to know.