Counseling and Coaching

Counseling


If you’re a gifted adult, you are an outlier, and you feel it. You may have been trying your entire life to camouflage your intensities in an effort to fit in and find connection.

Anxiety, existential struggles, perfectionism, serial relationships, serial professions, chronic dissatisfaction, low self-esteem are all potential hazards for you. Your conscientiousness and analytical abilities are powerful tools when you can bring them into harmony with your intense emotional life. You may possess multiple neurodivergences, and those may have been pathologized over the years rather than optimized. Your experience of differentness and challenges may have been multiplied if you’re also an otherwise marginalized person – BIPOC… female, non-binary, trans… gay, bi, pan, poly… physically disabled. All of that masking, code-switching, and camouflaging can do lots of damage and prevent you from emerging into your optimal self.

I am licensed to offer counseling services to people who reside in North Carolina and South Carolina. Beginning at some point in 2024, I will be able to offer counseling services to clients beyond those states. Read more about the changes here. The states in which I will be eligible include: Georgia, Maryland, Alabama, Mississippi, West Virginia, Utah, Maine, Florida, Kentucky, Nebraska, Tennessee, Colorado, Louisiana, Ohio, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Delaware, Wyoming, Arkansas, Virginia, Kansas, Washington, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Indiana, Vermont, and Iowa.

Your gifted adolescent is bursting with talents and may be beleaguered by frustration and anxiety. Neurotypical settings may be resulting in your teen feeling bored, lonely, or misunderstood. Conventional expectations may be affecting them negatively, as they struggle to fit into a society that values normalcy over excellence. Inequitable systems based in white supremacy and patriarchy erect barriers to people who are BIPOC, non-male, non-hetero, differently abled, and/or neurodivergent. Gifted teens are more likely to experience perfectionism, low self-esteem, high sensitivity, and emotional intensity.

You may struggle with inflexible, conventional educational systems as you try to get your teens’ needs met. I’m an experienced ally in helping families get past the gatekeepers and through so many unnecessary bureaucratic hoops.

Gifted teens are often wrongly diagnosed or pathologized by systems that don’t understand them or appreciate their gifted nature. Add another exceptionality like dyslexia, ADHD, or autism, and their twice exceptionality renders them even more vulnerable to being profoundly misunderstood. I work with gifted and 2e adolescents to make the most of their superpowers and overcome their challenges.

I do this work because I am passionate about helping outliers like you or your teen come out of hiding and embody all of their gifts.

I offer a free 20 minute consultation, so we can get to know each other a little bit and discern whether I’ll be a good fit for your counseling needs.

Coaching


I help gifted people hone their directions, craft effective ways forward, and implement strategies and mindsets for success. Most of the neuromajority’s tools and norms just don’t fit for gifted outliers. Your intensities have to be integrated into your pursuits, and you are best served by a coach who gets what it means to reside in the third standard deviation and beyond.

Individual coaching and group coaching are available. The People Who Get Me group is a dynamic process that’s open for registration right now. Click here to see more about it.

I help people clearly understand their giftedness and how to align what they do with who they are. You can get clear on your values, passions, and talents, launching yourself into greater integrity and happiness. Your gifted conscientiousness, perfectionism, and sensitivities are characteristics that you can bring to bear on moving into a better future.

I’ve been on my own gifted journey, and I understand my own gifted development. I’m a licensed mental health clinician and coach with over twenty years of experience. I can keep up with you, and I won’t pathologize your gifted characteristics. I have a track record of success.

I do this work because I am passionate about helping gifted people grow into themselves, liberate themselves from old stories about what was possible, and launch into lives of fulfillment, connection, and excellence.

I offer a free 20 minute consultation, so we can get to know each other a little bit and discern whether I’ll be a good fit for your counseling needs.

WHICH DO I NEED?

Gifted counseling or gifted coaching?

The good news is that I can do either. As a Licensed Professional Counselor and a Professional Coach specializing in working with gifted adolescents, adults, and families, you can get exactly what you need. Many of my clients begin with counseling and then transition to coaching upon resolution of the things that brought them in the first place. Others commence coaching, recognize that counseling is a necessary step, and switch gears.

I offer free 20 minute consultations, so we can get to know each other a little and to discern how/whether I can be helpful.

For those clients who are in counseling with someone and want to explore a coaching relationship alongside their counseling process, we can have a consultation and determine whether to pursue coaching.

I am licensed to practice counseling only in the states of North Carolina and South Carolina. I am disallowed from practicing counseling in the other states and territories of the USA until the Counseling Compact comes into effect sometime this year. My counseling licensure restrictions do not extend beyond national borders.

Indicated if you or your gifted teen is struggling with:

  • Depression
  • High anxiety
  • Panic
  • Trauma and/or traumatic history
  • Recovery from Narcissistic Abuse
  • Parenting issues
  • Behavior issues at work, school, or home
  • Obsessions and/or compulsions
  • Acute or chronic grief
  • Existential issues

Indicated if you or your gifted teen wants to:

  • Discover more about giftedness and how it affects your life
  • Explore your gifted identity and what it means
  • Maximize your talents
  • Make big changes in your working life
  • Align your high ideals with your day-to-day existence
  • Improve work performance or school performance
  • Feel fulfilled in work and/or relationships
  • Come into integrity with yourself
  • Achieve a long standing goal that’s stayed out of your reach
  • Formulate a vision for your future and then lay out a plan to achieve it
  • Identify your strengths and talents and put them to optimal use
  • Overcome disorganization, procrastination, and perfectionism
  • Pursue your talents wherever they may lead

Workshops, Trainings, and Groups

This year I’m offering workshops at the SENG Conference at Villanova University outside of Philadelphia regarding improv, humor, and self-development. Before that, I’m teaming up with the inimitable Heather Anne Keyes to offer half-day workshops called Laugh Your Way Through It: Growth and Healing through Humor. Contact me if you’re interested in attending or if you’d like to explore ways I can help you and your organizations through their self-development and group development journeys. It’s guaranteed learning and guaranteed laughs.