Get to Know Your Therapist!
Isn’t it daunting trying to find a new therapist, or find a good one for the first time? I’m hoping this blog post can help you learn a little bit more about me before you decide it’s worth your time and energy to reach out and start working together!
My areas of expertise
This is my bread and butter and I feel confident in helping you reach your goals in therapy for these concerns:
Eating disorders include any strained relationship you may have with food, your body, or exercise. If you struggle to feel peace around food, if your body feels like the enemy, or if your mind is preoccupied with food choices, calorie info, or fear of gaining weight, I can help!
OCD and anxiety also include things like panic disorder, hair-pulling and skin-picking, specific fears or phobias, and a general constant worry about life.
Life transitions tend to kick up a lot of dust! Think moving from high school to college, college into the workforce, youthful bliss into middle-age and beyond, single to married, or non-parent to parent. If you find yourself struggling in any of these life changes, I’m here to help.
My areas of growth
For the sake of saving you time, here’s some areas of therapy that I am not super skilled at! Just full disclosure because clear is kind.
Substance use or addictions counseling is outside of my wheelhouse and I don’t plan to seek training to the extent that I would call myself helpful in this area.
Neurodivergent concerns such as ADHD, Autism, etc. is a new and emerging area of expertise in therapy. I’m not there yet on training, but I am training to get better at this one to best serve you! For now, I feel more confident referring out than helping hands-on.
Complex trauma and/or PTSD really needs a special level of training and care to be considered an expert. This one is an easy area to cause more damage than be helpful so I usually refer to the best of the best for these matters.
Finally, mood and personality disorders are an area of therapy I feel lackluster at, to be honest! It just isn’t my forte. I know quite a few skilled therapists for these matters and that is my gift to you, good referrals!
My therapy philosophies and overall style
Here’s what I believe about bodies in and out of the therapy room
You were not born hating your body. You were born trusting your body for the tool that it is to survive well in this world, and I believe in getting you back to trusting your body in therapy.
I believe in healing your relationship with your body over fixing your body. Your body was never the problem.
I am anti-diet and won’t be your weight loss hype girl! 1 in 4 dieters will develop a full blown eating disorder, and only .7% of women that pursue intentional weight loss keep that weight off for more than 5 years. Diets don’t work and pursuing weight loss causes a whole lot of harm.
I believe that all bodies are good bodies and you can have health at every size. Every body is deserving of care, kindness, and equal treatment. No qualifiers! You cannot tell a person’s health status by looking at their body. Our culture holds a lot of prejudicial beliefs regarding larger bodies, and you won’t find that here in my therapy room. In fact, I hope you are ready to unlearn the harms of weight stigma and diet culture with me.
Talk therapy is not the right therapy for anxiety and OCD
Talking about your anxiety is just fueling your anxiety, not helping it. The best course of therapy for OCD, anxiety, and related disorders is exposure therapy! And that’s what I will have you do here in therapy with me. We will practice relating to your thoughts, emotions, body sensations, and fears in a more skillful way. Because all those years you’ve worked hard to control your anxiety just hasn’t made it go away, has it?
I don’t consider myself a “problem of the day” therapist
Sometimes people come to therapy because they love a good vent space for their weekly woes. You should absolutely go to therapy for that, that is a great use of your time! I have found that for me personally, I am more like Vanilla Ice on the therapist spectrum: give me a problem and I’ll solve it. I like to consider myself more of a coach, guide, and mentor through a specific problem where we reach the end of the tunnel and I set you free into your life once our work is achieved. Forever therapy is not my thing, but it might be yours and that’s totally fine!
I am pretty interactive in session with you
As I mentioned above, I consider myself much more of a hands-on behavioral therapist than a passive listener and head-nodder kind of therapist. I like our sessions to string together like a good book from chapter to chapter. Most sessions end with homework or focus points, and most sessions start with seeing how that played out between sessions. I often hear your concerns in session and bring skills to learn and practice to future sessions as a result. If you aren’t sure what to talk about in therapy, you are in luck! I probably have an idea or two to get the spark started.
I believe therapy works best when the relationship between client and therapist feels collaborative and equitable
This one can’t be stressed enough for me! I won’t be much help to you if the relationship feels unequal, and the same is true for you I bet. That is why I ask for respect and agreement to follow practice policies, collaboration and repair when disagreements arise, and a commitment to put your best foot forward in therapy, because that’s what I will be doing for you! If our relationship ever feels out of balance, I will address this in therapy. When anger, resentment, fear, or other emotions cloud the therapy relationship and it’s not addressed, it’s not going to give you the best outcome in therapy.
Get to know me when I’m not busy being a therapist!
Here’s a little about me, behind the scenes!
Here are a few words that describe me outside of the therapy room (but I’m sure you’ll pick up on these as we work together)
Sound like your cup of tea? Ready to get started in therapy? First of all, yay! Second of all, feel free to reach out to me to connect further and get started in your therapy journey. You can email me at bmelton@circlemcounseling.com, or you can fill out the contact form on my home page and I will reach back out to you with next steps! Not ready for therapy just yet, but want to stay connected for now? That is fine too! I suggest signing up for our weekly newsletter, Sunday Soothies where you can come hang out with the Soothie Crew every Sunday for anxiety tips and tricks as you head into your workweek. See you Sunday!
