Languishing in Adulthood Therapy
Reconnecting with Meaning and Vitality When You Feel Stuck
There's a particular kind of stuck-ness that settles in during adulthood—a sense that you're no longer who you were, but haven't yet become who you're meant to be. You're not in crisis, but you're not thriving either. You're languishing. If you're an emotionally curious creative soul in your 20s, 30s, or 40s searching for something deeper than traditional talk therapy, languishing in adulthood therapy offers a path forward.
I provide online languishing in adulthood therapy for adults throughout Sonoma County, the North Bay Area, Seattle, Washington State, and New York State who are navigating the space between depression and flourishing.
What Is Languishing in Adulthood?
Languishing is the space between depression and flourishing—a sense of being "stuck" or simply going through the motions. As you step and settle into adulthood, you may notice feelings of emptiness, dullness, stagnation, or disconnection from yourself, others, your community, or your career. You might feel unmotivated or uncertain about your direction, even when everything seems "fine" on the surface.
For artists, intuitives, and sensitive individuals, this feeling can be particularly disorienting. You're used to experiencing the world in rich textures and vibrant hues. When that capacity dims, when the sensitivity that felt like a gift becomes overwhelmingly static, the confusion can be profound. You're functioning and meeting your responsibilities, but you're not truly thriving or feeling connected to the vitality you once knew.
The Unique Challenge of Adult Life Transitions
Adult life transitions carry a weight that earlier passages don't prepare us for. Unlike structured transitions of youth, adult transitions often lack clear markers or communal recognition. These might include:
Moving to a new city or relocating within California or Washington, leaving a long-term relationship or questioning your partnership, confronting the reality that your 30s or 40s look nothing like you imagined, recognizing that who you've been doesn't align with who you're becoming, or finally acknowledging parts of yourself you've kept hidden—your queerness, your creativity, your need for depth.
What makes these transitions particularly challenging is that they often happen internally before they manifest externally. The gap between your external circumstances and internal reality creates a specific kind of loneliness that traditional therapy approaches sometimes miss.
My Integrative Approach to Languishing in Adulthood Therapy
I work with adults who are already on a healing path and seeking deeper, more integrative tools to support their growth. In our individual therapy work together, we'll explore your experiences of languishing, understand the stories and expectations that have shaped your idea of adulthood, and gently reconnect you with what brings meaning and vitality to your life.
Our work may include cultivating small practices to move toward flourishing, inviting curiosity and playfulness into your adult narrative, and building a deeper sense of connection to yourself, your values, and the world around you. I blend Internal Family Systems (IFS), depth-oriented psychotherapy, expressive arts therapy, Emotional Freedom Technique, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to create a therapeutic experience that honors creativity, emotional complexity, and inner truth.
Internal Family Systems: Understanding Your Inner Landscape
IFS recognizes that we're not just one unified self, but a collection of different parts, each with its own perspective and protective strategies. When you're languishing, it's often because your parts are in conflict—the part that wants growth is being held back by the part that fears the unknown. The creative part needs expression while the productive part insists on measurable outcomes.
I help you get curious about these parts rather than trying to override them. Through dialogue and exploration, we discover what each part is trying to protect you from, what it needs to relax its role, and how your parts can work together rather than at cross-purposes. This is where genuine integration happens.
Depth Work: Exploring the Why Behind Your Experience
I recognize that surface-level changes often don't address the root of your stuck-ness. Sometimes we need to go deeper—to explore unconscious patterns, unspoken family narratives, and cultural conditioning that shapes how you move through the world.
When you're languishing, there's usually something beneath the surface waiting to be acknowledged. Perhaps it's grief for the life you thought you'd have. Perhaps it's rage turned inward. Perhaps it's a longing for something you can't quite name—a truer expression of self, a life that honors all your dimensions.
For emotionally curious individuals seeking to understand the "why" behind their behavior, this depth-oriented approach offers the substantive exploration that feels satisfying and leads to authentic transformation.
Creative Expression as a Therapeutic Tool
For creative individuals, the creative process itself becomes therapeutic—a way to access and integrate parts of yourself that words alone can't reach. I incorporate expressive arts therapy into our work, inviting you to engage with your inner world through writing, drawing, or other forms of creative expression that feel natural to you.
Between sessions, I provide parts therapy prompts to help you reflect on, journal about, or creatively engage with the parts we're exploring together. This ongoing dialogue helps the work extend beyond our sessions and integrate into your daily life.
Somatic and Values-Based Approaches
Life transitions live in your body—the anxiety as tight shoulders, the depression as heaviness in your chest. I incorporate Emotional Freedom Technique (tapping) to help your nervous system regulate and release stored tension, providing practical tools for working with overwhelm.
Through Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, we identify your values and explore how to take committed action aligned with those values—even in the presence of discomfort. This psychological flexibility allows you to move forward while still feeling uncertain, to create a life aligned with what matters most.
What Working Together Looks Like
We begin with a consultation to explore what brings you to therapy, what you've already tried, and whether this approach feels right for where you are. You'll get a felt sense of what our sessions feel like, and we'll decide together if we want to work together.
If we proceed, I conduct an intake assessment over the first three appointments, exploring different aspects of your story—family, cultural, social, medical, and mental health history. After the intake, we identify three to five goals to guide our work together.
When possible, I work with clients weekly at a scheduled recurring time. This consistency provides a reliable anchor as you navigate uncertain territory. Between sessions, I encourage you to stay in relationship with the work through reflection, journaling, and creative engagement with the material that's surfacing.
Please note that I don't offer emergency crisis services. The work we do together is deep and transformative, unfolding at a pace that honors your system's capacity.
Who This Approach Serves
My practice is designed for emotionally curious and creative individuals who are already familiar with therapy and inner work. You're seeking depth, poetic language, and tools to integrate different parts of yourself into a harmonious whole. You're drawn to shadow work, parts work, and self-expression as forms of healing.
You're not looking for quick fixes or surface-level symptom management. You want to understand the "why" behind your behavior and create meaningful, lasting change that honors your creativity, sensitivity, and emotional complexity.
Specialties and Issues I Address
I specialize in languishing in adulthood therapy, helping clients navigate the space between depression and flourishing when they feel stuck, disconnected, or uncertain about their direction. Within this specialty, I work with life transitions and the complex feelings that arise when you're no longer who you were but haven't yet become who you're meant to be. I also address anxiety, trauma, and depression as they show up during these transitional periods.
Beginning Your Journey
If this approach resonates with you—if you recognize yourself in the experience of languishing, if you're drawn to integrative depth work that honors creativity and complexity—I invite you to reach out.
I provide online therapy sessions for adults and young adults throughout Sonoma County, the North Bay Area of California, Seattle, Washington State, and New York State. Contact me through www.creatinganintegratedself.com to schedule a consultation where we can discuss whether we're a good fit and address any questions about scheduling and pricing.
Your languishing might be the beginning of your becoming. You don't have to navigate this transition alone. Together, we can explore what's waiting to emerge in the in-between space, integrating all parts of you into a life that feels authentic, expansive, and truly yours.
