Psychodynamic Therapists in Chicago, IL

Carl Jung once said: "Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." Coming to therapy is an act of courage in itself and a testament to awakening your heart as a compass. Working together in a safe environment of acceptance and empathic dialogue, we will navigate struggles, develop healthy coping skills, and outline strategies that create hope and healing in the short term and generate meaningful, lasting change in the long term.

Across all therapeutic modalities I aim to maintain a safe space, which allows both therapist and client to collaborate and engage in natural conversation. I believe it is through these interactions where a relationship can be developed and certain insights come to light. In our work together, clients are able to learn more about their relational patterns, both through the experience of retelling their stories as well as firsthand within therapeutic interactions. As these insights provide opportunity for better understanding of current difficulties, ultimately, meaningful and empowered change can be pursued.

Missy is passionate about psychotherapy with children, adolescents, families, as well as adults. In working with adults, she helps them create meaning in their lives. With an eye toward life transitions and contextual factors, Missy empowers clients to face their current challenges with true agency. In working with children, I provide evidenced based skills in addressing mood, adjustment, anxiety disorders, and learning disabilities. I focus on a collaborative process in providing clients with prevention and intervention towards their present stressors.

It is my hope to partner with you to name the strengths and resources found within yourself and your relationships, so that you may cultivate a life of abundance. Perhaps you have questions about lifestyle, career, and vocational choices. You may struggle with the ongoing impact of past life events, or the cumulative effect of ongoing of sexual, gender, cultural, or racial biases. Or maybe you are just doing your best to be a good partner, parent, colleague, or all around human, but the effort is taking a toll on your mental, emotional, and/or spiritual life. However you are, I wish to listen to what matters most to you.

Whether you wish to gain clarity about a life challenge or seek to resolve a deeper change from within, our work together will present an opportunity to rework the patterns that may be disrupting your relationships or preventing you from fulfilling your life goals. I have advanced training in psychodynamic psychotherapy, viewing our therapeutic relationship as central to the change process while helping you understand how past conflicts affect how you feel in the present. I approach our work together from a genuine, empathetic stance with openness, humor, and curiosity. It is important that we are partners in your healing process.

Now Accepting New Clients In Person and Online — I am here to offer support and guidance to clients during difficult times, transitions, or simply in their everyday lives. There are moments when understanding and processing our feelings, thoughts, and circumstances become crucial, and I offer a collaborative, non-judgmental space for that purpose. I tend to work with men dealing with anxiety, depression, relationship conflicts, work stress, social isolation, life transitions, trauma as well as issues related to sexuality and identity. I also have experience working with people who are under excessive external pressure to succeed.

I appreciate your willingness to take the time to put yourself first and look for a new therapist. In working with me, you will find a safe space where differences are honored. Together, we will explore challenging topics while incorporating different skills and tools that you can utilize regularly. My approach to psychotherapy is trauma-informed, client-centered, with a social justice lens. The goal is to have a holistic approach to healing so that you can reduce symptoms, meet goals, strengthen supports and overcome everyday stress as well as past trauma.

I am committed to supporting my patients while they navigate existing within more than one culture and making sense of one’s intersectionality as part of their therapy journey. I practice from a client-centered, evidence-based, and trauma-informed lens of therapy. I'm interested in helping you address what is most important to you and using your past and present experiences to help guide you toward understanding yourself in your present-day life. I work with adults, adolescents, and children.

Are you in a relationship that you want to leave? Do you long for a relationship in your life but you can't seem to find the right person or act in a way that brings out your best self? Are you feeling down on more days than you are feeling up? Perhaps we should talk. The first step is the hardest, picking up the phone and asking for some help. A courageous act which I so respect and understand, but the necessary first step in the journey towards feeling better. Often you will feel better for just having done that for yourself.

I am a firm believer that making the decision to address your issues takes a great deal of courage and bravery. Many of us come from circumstances or environments that encourage us to push through pain by burying it, outworking it, or avoiding it. While these coping skills help us to survive, they don't necessarily encourage us to thrive. As a therapist with psychodynamic training and extensive life coaching experience, it is important to me that our sessions focus on identifying where core issues are coming from, encourage collaborative problem solving, as well as create space for intentional goal setting.

Life can give us experiences of fun and excitement. At the same time, there are periods where day-to-day life becomes overwhelming. When these waves of overwhelm arrive, we can experience difficulty identifying ways to deal with our feelings. We may struggle in naming what we are feeling and subsequently experience a sense of impossibility and helplessness. Through my work with individuals and couples, I developed a repertoire of interventions to guide my clients who are struggling with relational issues, depression, anxiety, trauma, and emotional dysregulation.

Do you struggle with setting boundaries or prioritizing your needs in relationships? Do feelings of guilt or shame keep you from being vulnerable? Do you ever find yourself feeling anxious or depressed but can’t understand why? Trauma can often play a role in how we think, feel, and interact in our relationships. As a trauma-focused therapist I have a thorough understanding of not only the impact trauma can have on a person’s life but also a person’s capacity to heal from trauma. I practice within a relational approach to therapy based on the mutuality, respect, and collaboration within the therapeutic relationship.

As an empathic clinician, I place importance on establishing a safe and comfortable therapeutic environment. I encourage a collaborative and authentic relationship in which my clients feel understood and supported. Because individuals are unique, I emphasize fully understanding each client and their specific concerns. My interventions are based on this understanding as well as my clients' preferences. I have lived and worked in several countries in Europe, South America and Africa and in my 20 years of practice have enjoyed working with individuals from diverse backgrounds on a wide range of concerns.

I strive to meet each client where they are in their process and walk with them as they move toward healing and fullness of life. Within each of us is a movement toward growth, but it's often derailed by our experiences and our interpretations of these experiences. I help my clients identify these points of derailment so that they may be free to live their lives fully and to become their most authentic selves.

My goal as a therapist is to put you back in touch with your own unique voice and sense of self that allows you to thrive. I use a psychodynamic, existential approach to find solutions to the unique challenges your life contains. Through building on open and honest relationship, we will explore effective coping tools and new ways to look at persistent issues that effect you.

Welcome! I believe that one of the essential ingredients of change and transformative psychotherapy is the relationship between the individual and the therapist. Feeling understood and comfortable only helps reduce one's symptoms, encouraging self-acceptance, but also leads toward deeper work which promotes lasting change and a deeper experience of one's whole self.

For the past 12 years, I have had the honor of meeting with clients of all ages and am amazed by human resilience. Often, emotions can be complex to navigate and difficult to manage alone. My goal is to support you through difficult moments, help you build awareness and understanding for your behaviors and feelings, gain clarity in confusing times, better understand your relationships, and ultimately help you see life in clearer terms.

Stories have always fascinated me. They have the power to move us emotionally, to educate and instruct, to entertain us, and to cultivate true compassion and empathy through the act of sharing a story with another. They are also a powerful vehicle for how we perceive, interpret, define and live our lives, yet sometimes it can be easy to forget that we can be the authors of our story, not just a character proceeding along some previously determined narrative.

Through research, education and clinical services, The Family Institute at Northwestern University is one of the nation's leading relationship-based behavioral health organizations committed to strengthening and healing the whole family system by bringing together the right partners to support children, adults, couples and families across the lifespan. As researchers, educators and therapists, we work with our clients and PARTNER TO SEE CHANGE. By weaving together 175 therapists and therapists-in-training, we create a high quality, collaborative system of behavioral health care. One that gets results.