Ashley Hamm (she/her)

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is a type of therapy that helps people accept the difficulties they are experiencing as a part of life, identify their values, and take action that aligns with these values. The premise of ACT is that struggle is a part of life, and fighting against it gets us nowhere, and can sometimes make things worse. If we accept the struggles we face but decide to move forward in spite of these struggles, we can achieve our goals and live a life with more meaning and purpose. I incorporate compassion-focused practices into my ACT work, helping you acknowledge the ways in which you are being hard on yourself, and how being a little bit kinder might help you move towards a life of valued action and meaning.

If you're dealing with anxiety you might feel tense, worried, or be filled with racing thoughts or feelings of dread. It's possible anxiety might be showing up in your body in the form of digestive issues, headaches, or muscle tension. I help my clients slow down, get in touch with their thoughts, feelings, and body sensations in order to get clarity on what's really bothering them. We work on identifying what anxiety is getting in the way of in order to help you move towards what matters.

Mindfulness-based therapy can be a pretty broad term, so I'll share a little about how I use mindfulness. I focus in particular on mindful self-compassion, which means that I help you face your emotions with more support, warmth, and encouragement. This is important because often we learn to avoid our emotions, feel frustrated or ashamed by them, and might try to suppress or deny their existence.

My therapy is feminist in nature because I am always looking through the lens of feminism and anti-oppression when working with clients. For my clients who strongly identify as feminist, having a feminist therapist means you're not starting from scratch in explaining your worldview. For people who are newer to feminism, I can help you see angles to your situation that you might not have noticed.

I help people who are starting to question the dominant cultural narrative that says we need to spend our whole lives on the pursuit of thinness. Often we start to question diet culture but still struggle with complicated inner feelings - such as, "That beautiful body positive model can accept her body, but I couldn't possibly." I can help you build more confidence in your path to accept your body and learn to set boundaries with those committed to staying stuck in diet culture.

I help people who are starting to question the dominant cultural narrative that says we need to spend our whole lives on the pursuit of thinness. Often we start to question diet culture but still struggle with complicated inner feelings - such as, "That beautiful body positive model can accept her body, but I couldn't possibly." I can help you build more confidence in your path to accept your body and learn to set boundaries with those committed to staying stuck in diet culture.

As a former Catholic, I know what it's like to feel stuck in guilt, shame, and low self-worth caused by a restrictive religious belief system and community. I can help you step out of the mental traps that keep you stuck and move towards a life free to focus on what matters to you. Let's work together to unlearn shaming self-talk, people-pleasing, and self-abandonment so that you can start to support and care for yourself, do what matters to you, and feel like a whole person.

As a former Catholic, I know what it's like to feel stuck in guilt, shame, and low self-worth caused by a restrictive religious belief system and community. I can help you step out of the mental traps that keep you stuck and move towards a life free to focus on what matters to you. Let's work together to unlearn shaming self-talk, people-pleasing, and self-abandonment so that you can start to support and care for yourself, do what matters to you, and feel like a whole person.

I help people who want to deconstruct their former religious beliefs. Many of the people I work with come from high control religions, which are religions that often involve strict rules on how to behave and authoritarian or hierarchical leadership structures. I can help you untangle the shame, anxiety, and self-doubt that comes from leaving a restrictive religious environment. Together we can explore what your path forward looks like and who you are outside of being told exactly how to be.

I practice a form of mindfulness based therapy called compassion focused therapy. Through this therapy, we work together to help you build a kinder, more supportive inner voice. Often the stresses in our life can lead us to speak to ourselves with harshness, and operate under perfectionistic and rigid rules. Compassion focused therapy helps you become more aware of this, and find a gentler way to motivate yourself and move forward.

I specialize in helping people better understand anxiety so that it no longer runs your life. We'll work together to grow your ability to be present, rather than stuck in rumination about the past and worries about the future. I'll help you get unstuck and moving towards creating a more meaningful, satisfying life.