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How I Work + What Happens in Therapy |
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How I Work and What Happens In Therapy
I tailor my approach to my clients' needs and goals. I believe human beings are complex individuals who each have a unique story and past that informs their present reality, their behavior, their wants and needs, and their feelings. If we work together, I first strive to establish safety and earn your trust so you know I’m holding your story as precious and listening with a non-judgmental ear. It’s important to me to make space for you to tell me what works for you and what doesn’t. What therapy may do for you. Drawing on your internal resources, we will increase awareness, get unstuck from unhelpful patterns, build a greater understanding of yourself, heal and strengthen relationships, calm anxieties, soothe depression, and learn to set boundaries and communicate effectively. My job is to collaborate with you, uncovering your own personal toolkit and strategies to help you show up in your life the way you want to. I will be there with you to support, challenge, ask guiding questions, provide resources, teach skills, share patterns I see, and notice what is happening in our relationship. How this is done. Working together, we will collaborate on the practical problems arising in your life and the deeper aspects of your experience. We will hold space for the traumas you have personally experienced as well as traumas that happen in community-specific and global ways. This would include looking at your family dynamics, your history of experiencing oppression, your beliefs, how you show up in relationships, your feelings, your dreams, and your understanding of the world around you. We will also look to the “here and now” experience by exploring active feelings, sensations, imagination, and our relationship. Together we will attempt to understand, tend to, and create meaning for these aspects of your experience. Healing and understanding your past to better find ease and fulfillment in the present. Many clients are reluctant to revisit the past because 1. It’s painful, 2. they feel they should be “over it,” or 3. they don’t get why looking at the past will help with their actual problems. It’s beneficial to explore your history to understand your current suffering. Revisiting your story can build self-compassion, reveal the connection between past events and current challenges, clarify the ways former relationships are informing current relationships, and allow a long-overdue opportunity to process old wounds. If the jargon matters to you. I work with an existential-humanistic, psychodynamic, attachment-based, social justice-informed, trauma-informed lens and integrate modalities like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Emotionally Focused Therapy, The Gottman Method, and Parts Work. More on that here. Practically. Individual sessions are provided during a regular weekly appointment. I do not provide every other week or as-needed therapy sessions at the moment. I have found (and so has a lot of research 1 2 3 4 5) that committing to regular, consistent therapy sessions is crucial for experiencing change. Who I work with.
I work with individuals who have been told they're “too sensitive” or “too much,” feel misunderstood, or feel alienated from the mainstream. I work with non-traditional families or partners looking for a therapist who "gets it." The number one reason clients reach out is they are experiencing some kind of distress--and they would like to experience less of it. This distress may arise from our relationships with friends, family, partners, jobs, school, systems, or from our emotions and thoughts, or from our behavior. Many want to make a change but are not sure how--therapy is great for that. Others clients simply want to deepen their connection with themselves, their community, and the world around them--therapy is great for that, too. Who am I? About me. |
Offering in-person sessions in Oakland and virtual sessions for clients residing anywhere in California.
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Stephanie Bain (she/her/hers)
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, LMFT #137288 stephaniebaintherapy@gmail.com | 1-510-545-9329 445 Bellevue Ave, #6B, Oakland, 94610 Employed by Center for Mindful Psychotherapy |
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