Aleta Edwards
Psy.D.
How Emotional Pain Affects Our Lives.
Emotional Pain
People often feel trapped by their choices, situations, and feelings, brought about by past hurts.
Life is difficult and everyone has emotional wounds. Those wounds can affect adults in chronic and painful ways.
Ways of coping that enabled people to survive when they had few choices often no longer serve them, and they do not understand why they keep having patterns of difficulty.
Regardless of what brings people in initially for therapy, they all have a life history that must be respected and understood to understand who they are today.
The feelings and experiences we prefer to forget are not the happy ones, and when painful symptoms arise it is often because those feelings are trying to surface.
The more people understand themselves and have respect for their own feelings, the more control over their lives they can have.
I specialize in depression, anxiety, grief and loss, self-esteem issues, relationship issues, life transitions, GLBT issues, adoption issues, and post-traumatic stress.
Intersecting multiple issues, and a specialty of mine, are issues of perfectionism and shame.
Whether a person experiences depression, anxiety, relationship difficulties, or trauma, perfectionism and shame more often than not play a major role.
I have worked with numerous people on these issues, helping them face what they feared, and moving beyond these painful emotions.