Christian Shearer (he/him)

Many people entering therapy experienced abuse during their childhood. A parent, other adults and even a much older child may have caused the abuse. Abuse can be verbal, physical, sexual or neglectful. Childhood abuse can cause people in adulthood to feel lost, depressed, afraid and in constant pain. I have worked with so many people who experienced mistreatment as children. I always want to help them understand what happened was not their fault but they can take ownership of their healing.

People can lose a loved one, a life opportunity, a childhood or anything they care about. People who experienced grief in their childhood so often never got to deal with their losses. So the hurt followed them into adulthood. And now when new losses come the losses from the past make it worse. I've regularly worked with people who deal with grief from their losses. I help them work through the losses and how those losses changed them and their lives.

People can go through events that caused such an overwhelming amount of stress that the stress from never goes away. It follows them in their memories, their emotions and sometimes their behavior. That is called post-traumatic stress. Therapy offers so many ways to recover from post-traumatic stress. Many of my clients developed post-traumatic stress from the painful events in their childhood. Therapy helped the stress slip away. They could start to experience life without constant stress.

Learn how to approach your thoughts and feelings mindfully. Learn to build and awareness of yourself without treating every thought and feelings as an absolute fact. ACT teaches people to accept themselves where they are but also how to make changes they want to make. ACT encourages people to live in their values to build contentment with life. ACT says " Live the life you appreciate. Not the life you think you should have."

DBT helps people find balances thoughts, feelings and behaviors. DBT reached people to find middle ground instead of living in one extreme or another. You learn to avoid thought traps that feed bitterness, anxiety and depression. You learn to develop healthy coping skills that increase your sense of peace. DBT says " Find peace by focusing on what you can control and living life with balance.

CBT helps people understand the connection between thoughts, emotions and behaviors. It helps people learn how to change their way of thinking to encourage more emotional peace. CBT can teach you to process emotions without seeing everything as the hurt you feel. CBT says "If you look at at things from a positive angle you'll see something more positive."