continually becoming
Mental Health Therapy
Becomingness is a space for the work of becoming - of understanding what has shaped you, attending to what asks for change, and moving forward with greater clarity, intention, and self-trust. Together, we'll develop a sustainable yet flexible path forward—building the insight, skills, and capacity to navigate life's challenges more effectively while moving toward a life that feels meaningful, intentional, and increasingly worth living.Thoughtful, evidenced-based psychotherapy for a life that feels more fully your own. Continually becoming.I have nearly 10 years of licensed clinical experience helping to support individuals with depression, anxiety, bipolar disorders, borderline personality disorder, & folks that live with suicidal thoughts and self-harm urges &/or engagement.
When Immediate Support Is Needed
At Becomingness Therapy & Consultation, we recognize that emotional distress can sometimes become overwhelming. While therapy provides a space to explore difficult experiences, strengthen coping skills, and develop a greater sense of safety, Becomingness is not an emergency or crisis-response service.
If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, having thoughts of suicide, or need immediate support, please consider the following resources:
• Call or text 988 to connect with the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• Call 911 or visit your nearest emergency department if you are in immediate danger or need emergency medical assistance.
You do not have to navigate a crisis alone. Support is available, and reaching out for immediate help is an important step toward safety.
What depression is (& isn’t) …
We oftentimes think about depression like it is portrayed in pop culture & that isn’t always the most accurate view. Depression is not feeling just feeling sad, often depression comes with feeling nothing at all, a numbness in which even when something would have previously initiated an emotion, it just doesn’t. It is not weakness or laziness; depression is a biological and psychological disorder linked to our genetics and the environment we are surrounded by. While it can look different for everyone, the depression that I see commonly is persistent and long lasting. Lots of everyday people experience depression, more than you might think. Some people take medication, others see a therapist, and some do both.
Depression can cause folks to isolate themselves from others (including their loved ones) and avoid engaging in activities that they have enjoyed doing in the past. People who experience depression also engage in something called rumination which is, according to psychiatry today, “Rumination involves repetitive thinking or dwelling on negative feelings and distress and their causes and consequences. The repetitive, negative aspect of rumination can contribute to the development of depression or anxiety and can worsen existing conditions.” When engaging in rumination, we don’t get to a solution to the problem, we just turn toward that negativity & at some point the negativity can feel normal, comforting at times.
Depression builds depth and breadth over time, meaning it can be deeply rooted in most aspects of a person’s life. To treat depression, I use an intervention within Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) called Behavior Activation (BA). The idea behind BA is to reengage with the aspects of life that used to be enjoyable and valued. We start by identifying what areas of need are, such as showering, brushing teeth, doing laundry (yes, putting it away, too!), we add things that a person used to find enjoyable (before the depression symptoms), lastly we move into value based BA. Value based BA can be more challenging than the others since often times when people are living with depression, they commonly live out of alignment with those values.