About Therapy With Me
The Disorder Is Squeezing Out the Rest of You
I think of therapy as two jobs happening at once: treating your condition, whether that's an eating disorder, OCD, health anxiety, or panic, and rebuilding your life without it.
It helps to picture the condition as a thing of its own, something separate from you. We both know it's also you, too.
Maybe you went through a frightening medical problem and swore you'd never feel that helpless again. Now the worry has hardened into panic or OCD symptoms, and in your calmer moments you can see it's blown your fears far out of proportion.
The values and desires underneath all of it are still yours. The disorder is just squeezing out the rest of you.
First, I Find Out What You're Actually Dealing With
This is where the "technology" of therapy comes in. It starts with a lot of questions, all pointed at pinning down what condition you actually have.
Say you recently developed panic and nothing deeper is going on underneath. Then I can pull out a fairly simple plan of relaxation and challenges that can quiet that panic in a few months, if things go well.
Simple, but not necessarily easy. I didn't say easy.
And if that's all you need, that's the best case. You get some quick relief, and I get to be happy thinking of you as healed. I love you and enjoy you, but please, get on with your wonderful, obsession-free life!
When the Habit Builds Little "Apps" Inside You
Sometimes the condition has more to do with how you grew up. Years of being overlooked, or hurt, or frightened can wire a habit in deep, until it builds little "apps" inside you that push you along almost on their own.
There are real protocols to help you stop, and they work, but they take effort and time, and sometimes coordination with your medical doctor or a nutritionist.
The habit has a life of its own by now. It's also fed by the emotional baggage you carry from back then, and probably from the present too. So we go deeper, and together we rewrite the script that keeps the disordered version of you running.
That's slower than a few months. New techniques are hard to learn and apply when a problem has this much history and feeling behind it.
Change in Cycles
For the longer cases, I lean on an idea borrowed from training cycles. Think about weightlifting or ordinary dieting.
A stressful "change phase" runs about two or three months before most people lose steam. After that comes a lower-key "maintenance phase," where you lock in the gains, hold your ground, and catch your breath before the next push.
Technique-based therapy for a stubborn problem works the same way. We push hard for a stretch.
Then we ease into a few weeks of supportive, exploratory work to get to know the "real" you underneath. Then we dive back in for another cycle and see if we can knock the compulsion down for good. By the end, you've learned a great deal about the person you actually are, and about what your life can look like from here.
About Cory Pearce, PhD
I've been lucky enough not to be controlled by compulsive tendencies in my life, though people who have witnessed my diet Mountain Dew consumption might disagree! Like everyone in this age of sedentary work and easy access to yummy, yummy food, I've had to find ways to manage overeating. But I've put a lot of thought into helping people with their spiraling conditions, and I'm always looking for something better.
My PhD in Clinical Psychology is from Texas Tech, with a (lonnng) heavy emphasis on psychological testing and developmental psychology. Though I enjoyed testing (and dare I say, I'm good at it?), I left it behind to focus on a therapy-only practice over a decade ago, because helping people change their lives is what I got into this field to do.
I am my teenage daughter's facilitator … meaning, I'm the one taking her to and from school every day and keeping her involved in her evening activities. Mostly drama, just not the emotional kind (so far … fingers crossed!). A musician in high school who can sing a little, I've even been known to spend a little time on the stage myself.
Let's Get You Your Life Back
By the time people reach me, they're usually saying some version of the same thing: "I just want peace from all this."
That's the whole point of the work. Treat the condition and hand you back the life it's been crowding out.
You want real, science-grounded help from someone who knows this territory and will be straight with you. Get in touch, and we'll start with those questions and figure out exactly what you're up against.
Take It Back
These problems get worse when you wait. Yours doesn't have to.
Start getting your life back today. A message through the website is always the fastest way to reach me.
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