Therapy for Depression
Discovering Light Through Shadow Work and Creative Integration
When depression settles into your life like a heavy fog, it can feel as though you're moving through the world behind a veil—present but not fully alive, connected but somehow separate from the vibrancy that once colored your days. I understand this landscape intimately, and I'm here to walk alongside you as you navigate through the shadows toward a more integrated, authentic existence.
Understanding Depression as a Messenger from Within
In my practice, I view depression not as an enemy to be conquered, but as a profound messenger from the depths of your psyche. Often, what we call depression is actually a collection of protective parts within us—parts that have been holding immense pain, carrying unmet needs, or guarding us from overwhelming feelings. Through our work together, we'll gently explore these inner landscapes with curiosity and compassion, understanding that every part of you has a story worth hearing.
Depression can manifest as a creative block, a spiritual crisis, or a profound disconnection from your authentic self. For emotionally curious and creative individuals, this experience often carries additional layers of complexity. You might find yourself questioning not just your mood, but your entire relationship with creativity, meaning, and purpose. The very sensitivity and depth that make you who you are can intensify the experience of depression, creating a paradox where your greatest gifts feel like your heaviest burdens.
My Integrative Approach to Therapy for Depression
My therapeutic approach weaves together Internal Family Systems (IFS), depth-oriented psychotherapy, Emotional Freedom Technique, and Acceptance & Commitment Therapy to create a deeply personalized healing journey. This isn't about following a predetermined script or applying generic techniques. Instead, I craft our sessions around your unique inner world, honoring the complexity of your experience while providing practical tools for transformation.
Internal Family Systems: Meeting Your Inner Parts
Through IFS, we'll discover that depression often involves multiple parts of your psyche in conflict or pain. Perhaps there's a part that feels exhausted from trying to meet impossible standards, another that carries old grief, and yet another that fears what might happen if you truly let yourself feel. Together, we'll create a safe space for these parts to be witnessed, understood, and ultimately integrated into a more harmonious internal system.
I guide you in developing a compassionate relationship with these parts, understanding their protective intentions even when their methods create suffering. This approach transforms the internal battle that often characterizes depression into an opportunity for inner dialogue and healing.
Depth Work: Exploring the Sacred Darkness
Depression often calls us into the depths—those mysterious realms of the psyche where transformation awaits. Through depth-oriented psychotherapy, we'll explore the symbolic language of your depression, understanding it as part of your soul's journey toward wholeness. This work honors the mystical and spiritual dimensions of your experience, recognizing that sometimes we must descend into darkness to discover our own light.
We'll work with dreams, symbols, and the creative imagination to unlock the wisdom hidden within your depression. This isn't about positive thinking or bypassing difficult emotions, but rather about finding meaning and purpose within the depths of your experience.
Creative Expression as Medicine
For creative and intuitive souls, traditional talk therapy alone often feels insufficient. That's why I incorporate expressive arts and creative modalities into our work. Whether through writing, visualization, or other forms of creative expression, we'll find ways for your different parts to speak, be heard, and ultimately integrate.
Between sessions, I provide you with creative prompts and parts therapy exercises designed to deepen your self-exploration. These aren't homework assignments but invitations to continue the conversation with your inner world, allowing insights to emerge organically through your creative process.
What Makes My Therapy for Depression Different
My approach recognizes that you're not new to inner work. You've likely been on a healing path for some time, perhaps working with other therapists or exploring various modalities. What you're seeking now is depth, integration, and a therapeutic relationship that honors your complexity without trying to simplify or fix you.
I create a deshaming, validating space where all parts of you are welcome—the shadows and the light, the creative and the stuck, the hopeful and the despairing. This isn't about cheerleading you out of depression or offering quick fixes. Instead, it's about sitting with you in the depths, holding space for your experience while gently guiding you toward integration and wholeness.
Our work extends far beyond the therapy session. I encourage you to engage with the parts we discuss, to be in conversation with them throughout your week. This ongoing dialogue transforms therapy from a weekly appointment into a living practice of self-discovery and integration.
The Journey of Working Together
When you reach out for a consultation, we'll explore what kind of support you're seeking and what has or hasn't worked for you in the past. This initial conversation gives us both a felt sense of what it might be like to work together. If we decide to proceed, I conduct a comprehensive intake over our first three appointments, exploring the various parts of your experience—family, cultural, social, medical, and mental health history.
Together, we'll identify three to five goals to guide our work, though these remain flexible as your journey unfolds. I typically meet with clients weekly at a scheduled recurring time, creating a consistent container for your healing process. This regularity becomes an anchor in your week, a sacred time devoted entirely to your inner exploration and growth.
Supporting Life Transitions and Languishing
Depression often intensifies during life transitions or periods of languishing in adulthood. Whether you're navigating a creative crisis, relationship changes, career transitions, or existential questions about meaning and purpose, our work together provides a supportive framework for moving through these challenging passages.
I understand that for emotionally complex individuals, these transitions aren't just external changes but profound internal reorganizations. We'll work together to understand how different parts of you respond to change, what they need to feel safe, and how to honor both the grief of what's ending and the uncertainty of what's emerging.
Creating Lasting Transformation
The transformation we work toward isn't about eliminating difficult emotions or achieving a state of perpetual happiness. Instead, it's about developing a more integrated relationship with all aspects of yourself, including those parts that carry depression. Through our work, you'll develop the capacity to hold complexity, to find beauty in the shadows, and to access your creative life force even in difficult times.
This is slow, deep work that honors your pace and respects your process. There's no rushing toward resolution or pressure to feel better on anyone else's timeline. Instead, we create space for genuine transformation to unfold organically, guided by your inner wisdom and supported by therapeutic expertise.
Your Invitation to Begin
If you're feeling called to explore your depression through this integrative, creative lens, I invite you to reach out. Whether you're in Sonoma County, the North Bay Area, Seattle, Washington State, or New York State, my online therapy sessions provide a consistent, sacred space for your healing journey.
This work is for those who are ready to go deeper, who understand that true healing requires patience, creativity, and a willingness to meet all parts of yourself with compassion. It's for those who see their sensitivity not as a weakness but as a gateway to profound transformation.
Your depression doesn't define you, but understanding its message can transform you. Together, we'll create a therapeutic journey that honors your complexity, supports your creativity, and guides you toward a more integrated, authentic life. Reach out today to schedule your consultation and discover how this deeply personalized approach to Therapy for Depression can support your unique healing path.
