Personal Counseling

Personal experiences or past work trauma can often create insidious barriers to professional fulfillment. These experiences can stand in the way of success by causing us to repeat unproductive behaviors. Most career-stifling obstacles include:

• anxiety
• stress
• depression
• paranoia
• self-sabotage
• self-limiting beliefs
• low self-esteem
• lack of confidence
• extreme procrastination

I also help people with current work stress, including challenging bosses or toxic work environments. Individuals struggling with a desire to change careers or transition to a different job but lacking the focus to make forward progress also find counseling beneficial.

A Mindfulness Approach

My experience as a counselor at the National College of Natural Medicine (NCNM) trained me in an approach that emphasizes mindfulness, anxiety- and stress-reduction, compassion, and resilience. I believe in following the client’s lead, and that the key to helping you move past self-limiting patterns is grounded in the rapport established between therapist and client. I strive to help clients gain confidence by not only listening attentively but providing exercises and tools clients can integrate into their daily lives with ease.

Control Mastery Theory (CMT)

Luckily, Control Mastery Theory isn’t anything like it sounds. It presupposes that we all have self-limiting beliefs that hold us back or trap us in unhelpful patterns, typically rooted in childhood (but not necessarily). They can be as scarring as hearing your father’s voice telling us that you’ll never amount to anything or as seemingly benign as a mildly persistent conviction that no one truly like you. Though the theory sounds fairly harsh with its use of words like “control” and “mastery,” it actually calls on the therapist to gently disconfirm self-limiting beliefs in complete deference to the client’s goals and sensibilities. CMT works best with those more tenuous mental barriers like low self-esteem and self-sabotage, easing clients to a more self-possessed and self-aware state of mind. Having banished self-doubts, clients are then ready to progress towards their goals and enjoy more fulfilling interpersonal relationships.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

CBT helps you identify and change unhelpful thinking and has proven successful in treating anxiety, low-level depression and stress, providing you with methods to stop maladaptive thoughts and self-condition your mind to approach challenging situations more productively.

Narrative Theory | Narrative Therapy

Narrative theory assumes that storytelling is a basic human instinct to help us make sense of our past and strategize about the future. CBT and CMT blend nicely with narrative theory, which emphasizes the re-authoring of past traumatic “stories” in your life to encourage self-confidence and self-compassion. It isn’t necessarily about replacing the past with a false narrative -- but, rather, reframing a view of the past to understand the ways in which it provides you with the decisiveness and courage to move forward.

Contact Kristin to schedule an appointment or schedule a free 20-minute call

Kristin Schuchman, MSW received her Master's in Social Work at Portland State University and trained as a counselor at the National College of Natural Medicine (NCNM).